From today’s Washington Post:
Virginia lawmakers could seek to tighten the state’s ban on gay marriages and screen judicial appointments more carefully after a Massachusetts court ruling that grants same-sex couples the right to civil marriages.
As the gay-rights debate threatens to roil the Maryland General Assembly, where legislators are expected to file competing measures, Virginia’s six-year-old ban probably will mute any broad discussion of the matter.
Lawmakers who would like to overturn the ban said they did not see any possibility of receiving a friendly response. But several did say that they feared that this week’s decision in Massachusetts would encourage those who are opposed to gay marriages to tighten restrictions already in place.
“I’m afraid that this will galvanize people in Virginia who are opposed to gay and lesbian equality,” said Del.-elect Adam P. Ebbin, an Alexandria man who will become the state’s first openly gay lawmaker when the Virginia General Assembly convenes in January. He said lawmakers should focus on other goals, such as changing Virginia law to protect homosexuals from discrimination in housing and other areas.
And then there’s this unbelievable comment from a Maryland delegate:
“I don’t want to live next door to people who have a same-sex relationship and have children and have my children playing with them,” said Del. Emmett C. Burns (D-Baltimore County), who plans to sponsor the bill prohibiting Maryland from recognizing same-sex marriages in other states. “Civil unions and all this business is bad policy economically, socially, educationally and politically.”
I’ll ask again: can anyone imagine someone saying that today about an interracial couple? Times change, people. Get with it.
Ugh. The attitude of that delegate (and a lot of America, unfortunately) is based on the false premise that homosexuality is a choice. (You rightly bring up another inherent human trait, race.) But to them it’s only a few degrees up from saying, “I don’t want to live next door to people who play their music too loud.”
i think when i make my first million being a civil rights lawyer and fighting for minority rights (hehe) i’ll buy every house on this emmett guy’s block and pay all my gay friends to move in next to him. and then, i’ll pay the local school system to hand out condoms to his kids and teach them about safe sex. oh, i bet he’ll hate it when they come home from school, well-dressed and emotionally sensitive…
There needs to be much more stringent anti-discrimination laws.