The curious case of Maryland and Governor Glendenning

Maryland is the only southern state with a law banning discrimination against gays and lesbians. It took almost his entire time as governor (7 years) to get it passed.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1589/is_1999_May_25/ai_54775062

http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/discrim/11822prs20011121.html

Governor Glendenning had a gay brother who died of AIDS and was thus determined to protect gays from discrimination. He spent an immense amount of political capital to get that law passed. I admit to being a great proponent of the theory that the right person, in the right place, at the right time getting things done.

In all honesty, the actually positions of the three major candidates on gay rights aren't all that different. If you consider what actually can be done, then all the candidates are about the same in terms of official positions. That leaves other things to judge on. Call it the Glendenning factor.

Here, we have no positive Glendenning factor to speak of. Richardson came close, having spent a great amount of political capital trying to get civil unions to New Mexico (already having brought a civil rights bill). Unfortunately, he was a pretty poor campaigner (and that is being nice). None of the other candidates have any real history of spending political capital upon our behalf. All three have good legislative records on our behalf. Certainly none of them would stand in the way of legislation benefiting us. So I have to make a decision based on other things.

That is why McClurkin is so troubling to me. Obama has shown himself to be close to tone deaf when it comes to gays. McClurkin wasn't just handled badly. It was pure, raw political calculation at the expense of gays. Now his weird comments about his favorite TV character. It leaves one wondering what he might say next. Obama just doesn't get it. I have no confidence he would spend any political capital on our behalf.

Hillary has her own problems, but those are mostly derivative. Bill Clinton has had problems in this regard. I don't think he spent enought capital on our behalf in the wake of Matthew Sheppard. I also am appalled at this comments in 2003 to a fundrasier for Dean (that Dean was unfit for nomination due to having enacted civil unions). But Hillary has marched in pride parades and has had high profile gay employees who uniformly speak well of her.

Edwards had a rocky early record but has his wife and daughter who would likely spend capital on our behalf.

In short, for me, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are roughly equal with Obama a distant third. I don't think we need another Glendenning. But we need someone who has some motivation and I prefer to support the person who has the most motivation. For me that is either Clinton or Edwards. An apology could change things. But I don't think one is forth coming.

Maybe we are ready for this now.