Two Sides Testify on Same-Sex Marriage

Bill Wingard of Timonium, speaking against same-sex marriage, told lawmakers he went to a therapist who thought he was a "suppressed homosexual" before he married a woman and had five children.

Many supporters of traditional marriage said opening the institution to same-sex unions would diminish it. They said the Bible's teachings led them to a conviction that marriage must be between a man and a woman.

"When the name 'marriage' can be stamped on any romantic entanglement, it loses all meaning," said Dean Nelson of Gaithersburg, director of the Network of Politically Active Christians. Clergy members would not be required to perform same-sex marriages under the bill.

But gay rights advocates, in arguments just as personal, made their case for marriage rights as a step in the fight for equality.

Sen. Richard S. Madaleno Jr. (D-Montgomery), a lead sponsor of the same-sex marriage bill, said he was married to his partner, Mark, in a church ceremony seven years ago.

"He is my spouse," Madaleno said. "But under Maryland law, he is invisible. It is a badge of dishonor I must wear every day." The couple has two children.

Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Montgomery), the measure's other lead sponsor, said it was wrong for the law to allow a murderer on death row to "marry and marry and remarry" while thousands of other couples in Maryland cannot. Fifty lawmakers have signed on to the bill.

Raskin and Madaleno were challenged by two Republicans on the committee, Alex X. Mooney (Frederick) and Bryan W. Simonaire (Anne Arundel), to defend polygamy if they believe in marriage equality for every group.

"Why are we taking this one group of people and saying we want equality just for them?" Simonaire asked. Madaleno called the question a "red herring."