By Lisa ReinWashington Post Staff WriterSaturday, March 15, 2008; B05
With prospects all but dead for legalizing same-sex marriage or even civil unions this year, gay rights advocates scored a small victory yesterday in their piece-by-piece pursuit of legal rights now denied gay and lesbian couples in Maryland.
Same-sex couples would have the same rights as spouses to make hospital and nursing-home visits, end-of-life choices and other medical decisions under a bill that won preliminary passage in the Senate.
The change to medical decision-making, opposed by most Republican senators, is one of three bills pending in the Democrat-controlled General Assembly that would create a legal, domestic-partner relationship to give gay couples limited benefits of marriage. Rights to joint property ownership and inheritance also have a good shot at passage before the legislature adjourns next month.
The incremental measures, some of which were vetoed by former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), are likely to be signed by Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and would represent a step forward for thousands of gay couples in Maryland. But it is increasingly clear that the votes are not there to legalize same-sex marriage, now the law in Massachusetts, or civil unions, which are legal in six states.
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1 comment:
That's "Democratic-controlled". "Democrat" is a Frank Luntz invention to make the left sound ugly!
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