The Washington Blade has run an article on those Democrats hindering LGBT progress in that "blue" state (quotation marks in the original). Having grown up in Maryland, I am always surprised that people should expect Maryland to be more socially liberal than it is.
Yes, Marylanders are fiscally liberal, but they are also deeply socially conservative. They are not consistently liberal or consistently conservative, but instead consistently statist, which leads to conservative social views. Maryland was ahead of the game in enacting a "defense of marriage" law and behind in getting rid of everything from a state board of motion-picture censors to sodomy laws.
One need only consider the makeup of Maryland's voters to see why. Maryland "liberalism" comprises Catholic liberalism, blue-collar liberalism, government workers' liberalism, and African-American liberalism, none of which is exactly known for being socially liberal, particularly on LGBT issues.
Marylanders pride themselves on their liberalism. Yet people from elsewhere consider Maryland to be a right-of-center backwater with some strange ideas as to what constitutes liberalism, and with good reason.
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