Badpuppy Gay Today

Tuesday, 1 April, 1997

Florida's and Maine's aggressive legislatures have recently allowed bans on same-sex marriages to stand. The great American journalist, H.L. Mencken, were he still alive, might have enjoyed a field day satirizing what he once referred to as "the Baptist barbarism" reigning in those states, a pious self-righteousness that inspires ludicrous leaps into legislative buffoonery.

Maine's seemingly civilized governor, Angus King, said Monday (March 31), he wouldn't veto a citizen-initiated ban on same-sex marriages even though he thought it unnecessary and unconstitutional. Gay activists and gay-friendly coalitions in the state's more enlightened districts, are said to have actually given half-hearted support to their governor's non-stand. Why?

A veto would have meant that Maine's voters would assume responsibility for the issue in a November referendum. King and the activists both seemed to agree it would be best to avoid a "bitter and divisive" referendum campaign. Noting that seventeen other states had discriminatory bans, Governor King indicated that the ban would likely be found unconstitutional and would "fall of its own discriminatory weight." Maine's governor also said, "I believe this bill (to ban same sex marriage) has very little to do with marriage and nothing to do with love." He accused Concerned Maine Families, a religious right front-group, and the aggressive sponsors of the measure, of stirring "fears and ancient prejudices."

On Wednesday (March 26) by a vote of 97-19, The Florida House overwhelmingly passed a similar marriage ban. Johnnie Byrd, a Republican from Plant City, explained the vote by saying "The people of this state do not want same-sex marriage. We don't need it." Approval of the bill is expected in the Florida Senate as well. In the House, nearly the entire Tampa Bay area delegation, much influenced by the religious right, supported the marriage ban. No Republican voted against it, while a few Democrats did ask their colleagues not to sit in such judgment upon gays.

Maryland's legislators have decided, after its House Judiciary Committee rejected a measure Tuesday allowing same-sex unions, to avoid, currently, taking a stand on the issue. The committee also rejected a bill that would have kept Maryland from recognizing out-of-state same-sex marriages.

A Virginia house panel was clear to gay men and lesbians that there'd be no measures enacted to combat anti-gay bias in state workplaces or housing. "Down there," Mencken wrote, "an intellectual is almost as rare as an oboe player, a dry point etcher or a metaphysician."