Local
Md. Senate begins final debate on marriage bill; hostile amendments defeated
Amendments on age of consent; “Mother’s Day” and “Fathers Day” rejected in lopsided votes
Senators voted down hostile amendments to the bill, Thursday, during the second reading.
The Maryland Senate resumed debate late Thursday afternoon on amendments to a bill calling for legalizing same-sex marriage, with a final vote on the legislation expected later in the evening.
In a Thursday morning session, the Senate voted down six hostile amendments aimed at weakening or killing the marriage equality bill, indicating supporters have the votes to pass the bill.
The six amendments were introduced by three senators, each of whom oppose the bill and introduced the amendments with the intent to derail the bill, according to senators backing the Civil Marriage Protection Act.
“It’s time for us to move on with this bill,” said Sen. Jamie Raskin (D-Montgomery County), one of the bill’s lead sponsors who served as floor leader on behalf of the bill.
Raskin said the amendments were unnecessary and called on his Senate colleagues to vote against them. Each lost by a lopsided vote.
One amendment introduced by Sen. Bryan Simonaire (R-Anne Arundel County) called for allowing parents to withdraw their children from any public school classes or instruction “that addresses same-sex relationships on written request by the parent or guardian.” The amendment lost by a vote of 30-17.
Simonaire cited claims that school children in Massachusetts were required to read literature about same-sex couples marrying. He read aloud a passage from a book called King and King, which he said was among the materials touching on same-sex marriage that elementary school children have been taught in Massachusetts.
An amendment offered by Sen. C. Anthony Muse (D-Prince George’s County) called for changing the name of the bill from the Civil Marriage Protection Act to the Marriage Redefinition Act. The amendment lost by a similar vote of 30-17.
Sen. Edward Reilly (R-Anne Arundel County) introduced separate amendments calling for barring same-sex couples from marrying if one of the partners is under the age of 18 and allowing religious institutions and organizations to refuse to rent or sell housing units to same-sex couples.
Another amendment offered by Simonaire called for the Maryland State Department of Education to “continue the annual and separate acknowledgement of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day in public elementary and secondary schools in the state independent of any provisions of this act.”
Simonaire said he understood that some D.C. public schools changed the name of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day to “Family Day” so that same-sex couples could be included in the recognition.
Raskin said he was unaware of and did not believe D.C. had undertaken such a change.
“Obviously, nothing in this bill would repeal Mother’s Day or Father’s Day,” he said. “Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are perfectly safe in Maryland.”
The amendment lost by a vote of 34-11.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
Maryland
Supreme Court ruling against conversion therapy bans could affect Md. law
Then-Gov. Larry Hogan signed statute in 2018
By PAMELA WOOD, JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV, and MADELEINE O’NEILL | The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ kids in Colorado, a ruling that also could apply to Maryland’s ban on the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide whether it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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