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AP: Maryland Board of Elections Approves Marriage Referendum Language

 

The Maryland Marriage Alliance is well on its way to being approved to gather signatures for a referendum to overturn the gay marriage bill Gov. O'Malley has promised to sign into law:

As Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley prepares to sign legislation legalizing gay marriage, opponents of the bill have cleared one of the first hurdles to asking voters to overturn the law.

The State Board of Elections has approved the language opponents will use when collecting signatures to bring the law to referendum, Mary Cramer Wagner, director of the board’s Voter Registration Division, said Wednesday. The governor was expected to sign the bill into law the next day.

...Maryland Marriage Alliance, a group up of religious organizations and supported by the National Organization for Marriage, is expected to lead the signature-gathering effort. A website Parrott developed last year, mdpetitions.com, will be used to electronically disseminate petitions.

... [Derek] McCoy [director for the Marriage Alliance] said his group will count on religious leaders to encourage their congregations to support the referendum effort, adding that they will likely be asking church goers to sign the measure at services as early as early as Sunday.

“You don’t get to the right to choose marriage and what it means for everybody and that’s really where we are,” McCoy said. -- The Associated Press

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