A few days ago Martin O’Malley, the governor of Maryland, submitted a bill to the legislature to legalize same-sex marriage. Hate groups like NOM have been preparing for this day. So, in our own way I suppose, have my fellow gay and gay supportive Marylanders.

I do not look forward to the brutal, bitter, torrent of hate mongering that is to come. I sure don’t look forward to having to know, as the signs start popping up on front lawns and the bumper stickers appear, which of the neighbors on my block want to cut my ring finger off. My neighbors are generally a good sort of folk I’ve found in the years I’ve lived at Casa del Garrett. Generous and neighborly…at least to my face. But just because someone takes a somewhat liberal stance on a range of issues, does not mean they can see the people for the homosexuals. Take for example the president of our state senate, Mike Miller…

The Democratic President of the Senate in Maryland is urging “Evangelicals, Catholics, African Americans” to oppose an upcoming gay marriage bill, and to vote against one if it ever came to a public referendum. Senator Mike Miller on a radio program said that while he didn’t want to sound like Republican presidential hopefuls, “I’m a father married for 50 years, I got 5 children, I got 13 grandchildren, I’m a traditionalist.” Miller said he wouldn’t stand in the way of a vote, and if there is a vote, as expected, in the Senate, it would again pass. But Miller’s suggestion to minorities and the religious right to oppose an equal rights measure is patently offensive and divisive, and smacks of a Maggie Gallagher move.

Miller, in explaining his opposition, however, did sound like a Republican presidential candidate, saying, “I’m a historian and I look at civilizations, I study civilizations, I read history every night. And I see it’s an attack on the family, I think it’s an attack on traditional families. That’s the way I see it.”

Dig it. He doesn’t want to sound like a republican, but just so you know, homosexuals are a threat to families and to civilization. This is what we’re in for, for the next year or so if this bill becomes law and NOM fires up its mighty Wurlitzer to insure that Marylanders fear, loath and hate their gay and lesbian neighbors enough to deny them equal rights in marriage. But I have a question: has any nation or civilization ever collapsed because its people loved each other too much?