From the Washington Blade

Equality Maryland Chosen by Washington Blade as Best Non-Profit Organization in Best of DC Issue

Equality Maryland, a non-partisan, statewide gay civil rights organization with its headquarters in Silver Spring, has been in the news recently in its effort to build support for overturning a Maryland law banning same-sex couples from marrying. With the ACLU representing nine same-sex couples in a lawsuit seeking to strike down that law, Equality Maryland organized a campaign to show how prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying negatively impacts the lives of many Marylanders and their families.

The marriage lawsuit comes at a time when Equality Maryland has been credited with helping to push through three gay rights related bills in the Maryland legislature and helping to defeat an anti-gay bill. One of the bills, which Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich signed, adds protections for gays and transgendered people in the state's hate crimes law. The second bill, the Medical Decision Making Act of 2005, would provide decision-making authority to domestic partners in cases where one of the partners is incapacitated or dies. The third bill, the Transfer and Recordation Tax Act of 2005, would eliminate taxes domestic partners currently must pay when one partner is added to the deed of the other partner's home. Ehrlich vetoed the latter two bills.

With Equality Maryland coordinating lobbying efforts on behalf of gays, the legislature also defeated a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex marriage, making the lawsuit by the same-sex couples moot.