Tweet
A chance shake-up of Maryland House of Delegates seating assignments brought Republican Wade Kach face to face with gay couples who had come to make the case for a gay marriage law, and might have proved decisive in its final passage through the state’s General Assembly on Thursday.
In an effort to get the bill to the House floor, a special joint committee was formed and legislators were left scrambling for seats. Kach, who had previously backed attempts to define marriage as between one man and one woman, found a space right next to the witness table.
“I saw with so many of the gay couples, they were so devoted to another. I saw so much love,” he said. “When this hearing was over, I was a changed person in regard to this issue. I felt that I understood what same sex couples were looking for.”
A week later, Kach voted for the gay marriage bill on the floor of the House of Delegates, one of only two Republicans to do so.
On the one hand, I think it’s wonderful that a Republican was able to look at a bunch of people in love and see… people in love, not sexual deviants plotting to destroy the sacred institution of marriage. And better yet, that he had the courage to buck his party by changing his belief system and voting his new heart.
But on the other hand, why should it be such a revelation that couples who are fighting so tenaciously for the right to marry would be deeply in love with each other? Love may not be the only reason that people get married, but I hear it’s a very popular one.
39 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Eli!
small steps
Keep in mind that she’s a conservative, so according to their view of human relations, cisgender marriage is about brutalization and hate.
Elliott!
I guess we’ll take what we can get. I like the sense of building momentum, though.
HEY, ELI! Gay people are everywhere and bigots just don’t recognize that they are there. The bigots are missing a lot of joy and happiness.
You know, with the OldWhiteMenClub it often takes a personal relationship for them to learn anything. Witness DickTheDick Cheney. He’s all about gay rights and gay marriage because he seems to care about his daughter.
Now, of course, there are the Phyllis Schlafley types who would just as soon turn away from their own child if he happens to be gay, but people with heart can sometimes become aware. Sadly, it seems like a certain 25-27% (the talibangelicals) are probably never going to see the light.
Yes! And I don’t think there’s any denying it.
HEY, TWAIN!
Eli!
At least some of them can be reached, even if it’s only through some for of self-interest. Good on Kach for changing his mind just based on seeing gay couples up close.
Buzz!
Its kind of nice to see that the light bulb lights sometime in heads were you’d least expect it. Its a small step, and just maybe the light bulb will light again in his head when it comes to the rights of women to control their own bodies. We can always hope.
My first cousin and his husband are married – during that small window that opened in Ca – and they have been together for well over 30 years. They are the happiest and most delightful people you can imagine. We have so much fun together and I can’t even think of missing that due to prejudice. Wingnuts need to get out more.
…I saw so much love…
Kinda reminds me of the Lake…! ;-)
Aloha, Eli…!
Aloha, CTut…!
Absolutely. Good on Mr.Kach for having an open heart. I hope the right doesn’t punish him for being a loving human being.
They probably will. I hope he keeps his other job.
And State-Rape-Advocate McDonnell of the Virginia State-Rape-Party continues to ‘support’ the ultrasound bill…….he just didn’t know it was “invasive”. I’m going to have to send him another “I Will Never Forget” note. Idiots!
We are going to have to stop allowing the term “gay marriage” to go by without notice. It’s not about “special rights for gays” as the wingnuts have always framed it, it’s about equality and full participation. Correct it every time you see it.
Yeah, it’s kinda the exact opposite of “special rights”…
Precisely. I know that you didn’t write that piece but I believe it needs to be specifically corrected.
Thanks, Margaret, for the reminder. Human rights. Just being people. Just living life.
He thinks he’s being clever, leaving the required results of a test in the law but “not mandating” the test itself. If he’s mandating the results that you can only get from an invasive procedure, the procedure is also mandated, whether it’s spelled out in the legislation or not. What’s saving the women of Virginia from this onerous requirement is the bill’s original author who pulled it rather than allow the insanity to be watered down.
OT….but, then, nothing is really off track. I’m watching the documentary called “Semper Fi” about the poisoning of the water at Camp Lejeune. I wept bitter tears when I read Krakauer’s story about what our government did to Pat Tillman. I know I’ll weep as hard or harder at this story. On MSNBC.
See if it you can stand it.
Watching Marine officers and their staff lie to a government committee is ….beyond troubling. Talk about your deep shit.
What about gays wanting to marry a goat?
When the LGB persons in the country achieve marriage equality and achieve it they will, will it then be time to turn to equal rights for the transgendered? Because in most states, we don’t have the “right” to work and support ourselves, to have adequate housing, to have access to public accommodations, to be safe in public, to patronize goods and services, etc. Somehow I doubt it. Somehow I think we’ll be the forgotten red headed step children again. But I can’t see why marriage is more important than my right to eat. Marriage equality is important and greatly to be desired but it’s fluff and bullshit compared to being allowed simply to LIVE.
Very eloquent, Margaret.
A lot of male breast cancer. Do you suppose that would interest the OldWhiteMaleClub in talking some truth? We’ll see.
I hear you, Margaret. This country has a whole lot of atoning to do.
Shit, I’m so pissed at American males (at least the old white men my age) that marrying a goat sounds like an interesting idea.
The ‘higher ups’ at Camp Lejeune and the Federal Government made Semper Fi a 4 letter word. What a crying shame.
Wwll, the Govt. finally gave health care to the victims of the Camp Lejeune water poisoning. Didn’t bring back the dead kids, of course, but it’s a start. Final blurb: 1 in 10 Americans lives within 10 miles of a US base.
Marriage, in its legal and religious forms, is over-rated which is why most people don’t do it, and why many do it simply for legal or medical benefits.
Calling it “sacred” is enough to turn me off. My love for my partner is hardly sacred. It’s far better than that, in many ways. I’ve seen what sacred can do.
Sacred institution to describe a deep relationship? You need to fall in love. Fight for the right to marry? Who has the power to give us this “right” to marry? The state? The church? No.
The state has more claim to marriage than the church, for the simple reason that legal marriages are legally-binding contracts that possess legal implications for the persons involved therein — everything from tax code impacts to determining who can or cannot visit you if you’re in the emergency room.
Margaret when I lived in NM I was one of three lgbt lobbyists. I promised the transgender community that I would work my ass off to make sure we all got to the finish line together. We got both an ENDA bill and hate crimes passed, both of them transgender inclusive. We were the first in the country to cross that finish line together.
To this day I am so grateful that I can look all people in the eye and know I kept my word and that ALL my brothers and sisters are equal in the Land of Enchantment. If we talk about equality it really does mean for all, not just the better off or the better connected. Time for people to put up , shut up or get the hell out of the way. We are going to get there, together.
It was intended as a reference to right-wing “defense of marriage” rhetoric. I don’t personally have any particular reverence for marriage, but I think everyone should have the right to it.
It’s not about love — it’s about procreation, i.e., humanity as breeding stock.
Margaret, I suspect the outlook for trans people may be better than you think. I am a parent of a gender nonconforming child as well as a member of a support group for parents of trans/gender nonconforming children (elementary school age). We are not parents trying to change our children but to support them in their gender identity. There is increasing demand for such support groups, I am told, by the PFLAG group near us. More and more parents are supporting their children rather than trying to change them, which leads to all kinds of activism on trans issues. I can tell you this life experience has transformed me into a serious activist for trans equality, respect, and rights.
Marriage has historically been utilized as a contract for the transfer of property. Everyone is familiar with the story of the handsome prince marrying the beautiful princess and living “happily ever after”, which is, appropriately, a fairy tale.