Maryland is already shaping up as a key battleground for marriage in 2011 – one of three states in which the Human Rights Campaign and their allies are pushing for same-sex marriage this year.

We need your help! Click here to send a message to your delegate and state senator today!

Just yesterday, Delegate Luiz Simmons from Montgomery County, along with 15 co-sponsors, introduced a same-sex marriage bill in the House (HB55), deceptively titling it the “Religious Liberty and Civil Marriage Protection Act.”

Only three paragraphs long, the bill protects neither marriage nor religious liberty. Instead, it removes the statutory language that has protected marriage as the union of a husband and wife, while paying only lip service to the existing religious liberty protections extended to clergy by the First Amendment and the Maryland Declaration of Rights. It does nothing to address the serious (and much more common) conflicts raised when parents are denied the right to opt their children out of public school instruction about same-sex marriage, when religious institutions are required to pay spousal benefits for same-sex couples, or when an individual is forced to choose between her profession and her religious beliefs.

Don’t let the Human Rights Campaign use deception and misinformation to push same-sex marriage on Marylanders.  Help fight back with the truth!  Let your elected officials know you’re standing up for marriage and won’t be fooled by empty promises to protect marriage and religious liberty while blatantly undermining both.

Here’s what you can do!

1.  Click here to send an email to your delegate and state senator today. Your email will also be delivered to the members of the House Judiciary Committee, urging them to oppose HB55 and any other same-sex marriage legislation that may be introduced this year.

2. Help spread the word! The best way to stop same-sex marriage in Maryland is through a massive uprising of grassroots opposition. Talk to your neighbors; tell people at church; and ask your Facebook friends to join you in opposing this new attack on marriage. Together we can stop this bill, but it’s going to take all of us. Use the buttons at the top of this message to share this message through Facebook, Twitter, or email.