The Maryland Senate has delayed its vote on same-sex marriage legislation until Thursday.
The 47 legislators had planned to take up the bill, which was passed Friday by the House of Delegates, during its Wednesday morning session.
The opponents said the procedural delay would allow them time to seek an opinion from the attorney general on several amendments as well as prepare additional amendments that could be offered Thursday.
One amendment, offered by Sen. Edward Reilly, an Anne Arundel County Republican, would allow the law to go into effect on Oct. 1—thus removing an amendment by Delegate Wade Kach, a Baltimore County Republican, that set the effective date as Jan. 1, 2013.
"It may look like a placebo, but this is really a poison pill," said Jamie Raskin, a Montgomery County Democrat. "Any effort to amend the bill is an effort to kill it."
Proponents and opponents acknowledge that changing the bill at this point will be nearly impossible.
Passage in the Senate also is expected.
"I don't anticipate a single vote has changed," said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller.
Miller said he had hoped the Senate would deal with the bill Thursday "so we can move on with the business of the state."
"We've made progress though," Miller said. "We adopted the favorable committee report."
The Senate is expected to take up the bill again Thursday morning.
when they are up for reelection...but, with their generous severance package...they won't mind...
The best way to keep religion out of this is to remove the word "marriage" from the bill and replace it with civil union. In many European countries, couples (m/f, m/m and f/f) are granted a civil union by the government, then if they wish to have a religious ceremony then they can and that is called a marriage. I think that is how it should be here also. If your church believes marriage is one man and one woman, that is fine by me but if your church believes marriage is one man/one woman, two men or two women then that is fine by me also. Once this happens and we start to use the term 'civil union' for all government reasons that we now give benefits to the married then I think we will be able to move on. I don't want my gay friends to have to carry around multiple documents to prove that their partner should have the benefits that my husband has just because I can say there he and I are married. Please remove religion out of this bill and call it what it is .... a civil union. I would be more then happy to have my marriage know as a civil union for government purposes. Did I get married in a church? Yes because that was a choice I had. I could have gotten married by the justice of the peace or here in SC where I now live, I could have had a notary public perform the service (and where is religion is that?). Thanks for letting me speak my piece.
The ultimate authority is God. You will be held accountable for the choices you make. We are warned of the times when evil will be seen as good and good as evil ... unfortunately, we may be seeing the evidence of God's truth in that now. I pity the men who put that on their own heads. Flee from evil and do what is right – not in the eyes of man, but in the eyes of God.
for freedom. It is a struggle of already free people for complete social acceptance and the sense of normalcy that follows thereof-a struggle for the eradication of the homosexual stigma.
Joint Tenancy-at the death of one-ownership of the remaining property passes to the surviving tenants or successors who assert the right of survivorship (you don't have to be married to have this). Advance Directive- one can name anyone to carryout funeral wishes as well as a Do Not Resucitate Order(my family also has this for our mother). I will NEVER condone the abnormal perverted behavior of homosexuals.