Now that the Maryland legislature and Governor, plus the voters of Maryland, have taken the decision of same-sex marriage out of state government hands and placed it with same-sex couples (thank you all), these same-sex couples need to decide if they actually want/need to get married.

The Question 6 victory was stupendous. Maryland gays and lesbians now have the right to marry their partners. Many of us have started to plan the weddings of our dreams and to get our state marriage licenses. But before we rush off to the altar, let’s consider some questions we should ask before tying the knot:

All the hard work over the past decade, all the sacrifices, all the persuasions, all the deal-making, all the dollars raised and spent, all the legislative and judicial defeats, and then the eventual signing into law the Civil Marriage Protection Act have brought the Maryland LGBT community to this critical moment in history. On Election Day, voters will decide if same-sex couples can legally marry in the Free State.

Last month Governor Martin O'Malley signed the Civil Marriage Protection Act into law. Under his tireless leadership—and that of key legislators and the large coalition of gay and straight organizations—committed gay and lesbian couples will be able to marry on January 1, 2013—if all goes well this fall.

I'm about to break down seriously racist shit that goes through my head. Reader discretion: I'm about to get ugly.

As gay marriage looms over Maryland and we're all enjoying a fool's paradise of imagined assimilation and social equality, a disastrous bill that destroyed our rights has already been signed INTO LAW the LAST day of 2011.

Editor's Note: The following editorial was written in response to Bill 3-12 introduced by Baltimore County Councilman Tom Quirk on January 17. Also known as "An Act Concerning Human Relations" this bill aims to protect people from discrimination in the areas of Public Accommodations, Employment, Housing, Education, and Finance on the basis of "sexual orientation" and "gender identity or expression."

Originally published by Center Maryland (CenterMaryland.Org)

The following is the text, verbatim, of the paid death notice for my mom that appeared in the March 31 New York Times:

KURTZ–Lynn. Died at home March 30. A musician and educator, she is survived by her spouse Elli Ross, daughter Eliza Kurtz, son Josh Kurtz, daughterin- law Caryl Ashrey and granddaughters Haley Beidel, Zoe Kurtz and Genevieve Kurtz.

I never told a lot of people that my mom was gay. It’s not that it was a big secret—it was just never a big deal. She was my mom, and I loved her. My mom never really “came out.” That wasn’t her style. She just went about her business and lived her life the way she wanted to.

In 1989, a few friends gathered in a Baltimore church basement to cook and package healthy meals to go. The purpose? Provide lifesaving nutrition to people dying from AIDS, who often suffered in rejection and isolation. Working on an initial grant of just $8,000, Moveable Feast was born, subsisting on a mere three employees and serving just ten clients two days per week.

Fast forward 22 years: Today, Moveable Feast, now hailing from a new state-of-the-art facility in East Baltimore, serves homebound, low-income Marylanders living with HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, and other life-threatening conditions. Meals are meticulously designed by a team of three registered dietitians, and prepared in-house by thousands of volunteers, supervised by an experienced kitchen staff.

I don’t spend very much time thinking about how I self-identify based on my sexuality. Perhaps it’s because I’m a lawyer, but when asked, I view sexual orientation based on the facts that are readily available. In other words,I understand that how a person presents is generally how they are perceived, regardless of how that person identifies.