http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-md.marriage12feb12,0,155535.storyActivists call for gay marriageBy Laura Smitherman | Sun reporter
February 12, 2008
Gay-rights activists rallied in Annapolis yesterday and met with dozens of lawmakers to lobby for same-sex marriage, predicting they are close to having the necessary votes in the legislature only five months after Maryland's highest court upheld the state's ban on such unions.
Several hundred people in Lawyers Mall held signs that read "Protect all families" and "Love does not discriminate." Organizers with Equality Maryland, a gay-rights group, said they dispatched participants to make more than 115 visits with lawmakers and urged them to tell personal stories and why their relationships need protections afforded by marriage.
The first hearing on legislation to legalize same-sex marriage will be held Thursday before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. The panel also will consider a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex unions as well as bills to create domestic partnerships that would replace civil marriage and to allow so-called covenant marriage, a legally distinct matrimony that's optional and limits grounds for divorce.... MORE