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For the last weeks there has been rumbling within the LGBT community that Governor Martin O'Malley of Maryland was not giving the marriage equality ballot measure enough attention. Granted, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York and Governor Christine Gregorie of Washington have set expectations high in the LGBT community. Those two outstanding governors showed us what could be done with steel determination and passionate advocacy.
While Governor O'Malley deserves high praise for his work on assisting in shepherding the legislation through the Maryland legislature, there is a sense he is 'missing in action' with the upcoming ballot measure to repeal that legislation. For many of us his advocacy for President Obama is respected, needed and important. Without Obama in office the next four years the entire country and every issue we care about are in trouble.
However, those uneasy concerns among us about O'Malley have been codified with Jonathan Capehart's latest column in The Washington Post. Capehart is a highly respected journalist and extremely politically astute. When his column "Gays Worry Gov. O'Malley Is Gambling With Marriage Equality" appeared it set off loud warning bells in the LGBT community.
Capehart writes powerfully of O'Malley's determination to put a gambling initiative on the ballot this November that would add a sixth casino in the Old Line State. This could be simply disastrous for the marriage equality initiative in the fall. Placing this initiative on the same ballot as marriage equality will guarantee a more motivated religious voter turnout and tons of money from casinos that don't want competition to turn them out.
This is a long except from Capehart's column but it needs to be read and especially by the governor.
O?Malley is pushing to get approval of a sixth casino in Maryland to be built in Prince George?s County and operated by MGM. Just as a point of information, Prince George?s County is majority African American and they make up a majority of voters there. But O?Malley has to get the state legislature to approve it in a special session called no later than mid-August. The state senate is on board. The governor?s obstacle has been the House of Delegates. And that?s only the beginning of the fight.
If past is prologue, the operators of the five existing casinos will fight like hell, including spending as much money as it takes, to defeat the MGM plan for Prince George?s. This is what happened when two of the companies with casinos in Maryland went head-to-head in Ohio over a 2008 ballot initiative to allow gambling in the southwest portion of the state. Lakes Entertainment of Minnesota (Rocky Gap Casino) spent $26 million in an effort to pass it. Penn National Gaming (Hollywood Casino) spent just shy of $38 million to defeat it. The measure was defeated by more than a million votes.
Now, imagine what could happen in Maryland when those two corporations, plus the other three operating in the state, go to battle to defeat the MGM casino. ?Gambling overwhelms every issue in the state,? said Chrys Kefalas, former legal counsel to former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R). Kefalas is openly gay and testified in favor of the marriage equality bill in February. ?This is a big fight with the potential for collateral damage.? That collateral damage being not only the marriage-equality law, but also the Dream Act for Maryland.
A gambling ballot measure this November ?will energize a base of opponents who would also vote against marriage equality at a time of soft support for marriage equality,? Kefalas told me. This last point flies in the face of recent polling we?ve seen. But Kefalas and others raise doubts about the rosy data showing growing acceptance of same-sex marriage in Maryland.
A May survey from Public Policy Polling showed that if the vote to uphold Maryland?s marriage-equality law were held today, it would pass with 57 percent of the vote. The same poll showed African American support jumping to 55 percent. This was especially significant as the survey was done after President Obama?s historic announcement of support for same-sex marriage.
But that poll was commissioned by Marylanders for Marriage Equality. More independent polls, albeit done before Obama?s declaration, show a closer result. A Post poll from January showed 50 percent in favor of same-sex marriage and 44 percent opposed. A Gonzales Research poll, also from January, put support at 48 percent and opposition at 47 percent. ?I do not believe at all that this initiative is above 50 percent among likely voters,? a Maryland pollster who is closely following the marriage-equality referendum told me.
So, same-sex marriage boosters are worried about the potential for a perfect storm that could lead to the defeat of the state?s law. There?s the prospect of casino operators spending millions to put the kibosh on a sixth casino. This could gin up the anti-gambling base of opponents that Kefalas told me is comprised of rural voters and African Americans, who oppose gambling for religious reasons.
?Any campaign to defeat a new casino might entail dragging religious opponents to gambling out of the woodwork,? said Jeff Krehely, vice president for LGBT research and communications at the Center for American Progress. The Maryland pollster I talked with echoed this concern, saying that a gambling referendum ?adds to a ?this is against our values? argument? among those more conservative voters.
Governor O'Malley is a good man and he can count me as a fan. However he doesn't want Maryland to be the only ballot measure we lose in November while the governors of Washington and Minnesota are making marriage equality their top issue. That would be very sad indeed.
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