A campaign to derail a proposed gay
marriage law in Maryland is focusing on fear.
Mailers being distributed by the
National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the nation's most
vociferous opponent of gay marriage, urge Maryland residents to
oppose the institution's legalization, gay
weekly The
Washington Blade
first reported.
In one mailer, a child's doll cries
under the headline, “Maryland families are under attack.
Unemployment, higher taxes and now same-sex 'marriage.'”
“Imposing same-sex marriage has
consequences,” reads another headline. Those consequences, the
mailer alleges, are children as young as kindergarten being taught
about gay marriage; opponents risking “lawsuits and
government-imposed consequences;” and “religious organizations
will be subjected to lawsuits claiming discrimination because they
refuse to participate in acceptance of gay marriage.”
The mailers also target Maryland State
Senator James Brochin, a Democrat who shifted his position from
supporting civil unions for gay and lesbian couples to supporting
marriage. Brochin said he had a change of heart after hearing the
testimony of opponents, which he called “troubling.” (One
opponent warned that such marriages pave the way for android
nuptials.)
“The demonization of gay families
really bothers me,” Brochin said. “Are these families going to
continue to be treated by the law as second class citizens?”
But the group fails to take aim at
Senator Allan Kittleman, the only Republican senator who voted in
favor of the gay marriage bill. Kittleman also had previously
supported civil unions, not marriage, for gay couples.