OUTSTANDING Maryland victory! Last-minute surprise revival of Transgender Bill met with defeat. 

Handful of pro-family activists beats homosexual lobby! 

Hear audio (below) of bold pro-family testimony in State House.

POSTED: April 12, 2011

It's a great pro-family victory against overwhelming odds. And it shows how toxic the "transgender rights" bills will be seen when our side takes this fight seriously.

The radical Transgender Bill in Maryland that everyone was told was "dead" for the year, was suddenly revived last week and put on the fast track to get passed before the April 11 deadline, which was the last day of the 2011 session. There was fierce pressure by the GLBT lobby, and its passage seemed inevitable.

But a small band of pro-family activists -- less than half a dozen -- fearlessly and relentlessly persevered and shocked the liberal establishment when the bill was defeated. In the final hours, nine Senators who had supported the bill changed their minds.

The Maryland State House was a busy place this week, as the 2011 session ended Monday at midnight.

MassResistance was also in touch with the activists and continued to supply them with material and advice on strategy. But it's really an incredible story.

A tireless fight over seven days

As we reported last week, the Transgender Bill passed the House on March 25 and went to the Senate. On March 28 the Senate President put the bill in the Rules Committee -- a "graveyard" for bills -- and publicly said its chances of passing were "next to none.".

We thought we were done. But here's what happened after that:

• Tuesday, April 5: Rules Committee votes to revive transgender bill. The Senate President succumbed to immense pressure by the GLBT lobby and had the bill released from the Rules Committee. We were told this even included calls from members of Congress. As the president of Equality Maryland told a homosexual blog:
  
  "We've literally had thousands of emails and hundreds of calls made to get it out of Rules...and we are very fortunate to have wonderful allies within the General Assembly who have been working on this...We're going to keep on fighting and keep it moving."
  
• Wednesday, April 6: Hard pro-family lobbying begins. The bill was immediately sent to the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. The pro-family activists started heavy lobbying on the Committee members. One of the activists used her group, Maryland Citizens for a Responsible Government, to fund thousands of robo-calls in the committee's districts during office hours, directing people to call the Senators' offices. (And hundreds did!) They also passed some of MassResistance's material on the transgender movement as well as medical studies on transgenderism at the State House.
  
• Thursday afternoon, April 7: Senate committee public hearing.  With almost no notice, the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee held a two-hour public hearing on the transgender bill. The homosexual lobby was well prepared with extremely emotional testimony, and how the bill must be passed to "reduce ignorance." They told the committee, "By our count, we have enough votes on the Senate floor."
  
  But when the pro-family activists were allowed to speak, the committee told them they could only have two minutes each. And worse, the Committee members badgered them, were rude, and tried to intimidate them. But the activists stood their ground and gave great hard-hitting testimony. It was quite inspiring.
  
  
  AUDIO: Listen to excerpt from pro-family testimony against transgender bill and the harassment from Committee members.
   
  

  Maryland Transgender Bill Hearing

  [NOTE: Audio provided by State of Maryland.]

  Committee members were angry that their constituents were being told about this radical bill (from the robo-calls), and were letting them know how they felt!

• Friday, April 8. More lobbying in the State House. Both sides were working hard.
  
• Saturday, April 10: Judicial Proceedings Committee meets and votes 7-4 to move the bill to the full Senate. They tweaked some of the language to make it more palatable. But the word was getting out around the Senate how constituents didn't like this bill, and how radical it was. Despite the "civil rights" patter from the homosexual lobby, the materials members were seeing from the pro-family people were apparently starting to shock them.
• More backlash against the bill: On Monday morning the Washington Examiner printed this great op-ed article, which summed up a lot of the backlash against this bill: "Your assignment from the transgender lobby," which breaks down the ridiculous concepts such as your gender that's "assigned at birth."
  
• Monday afternoon, April 11: Senate backs down and defeats bill! On the afternoon of the last day of the session, the vote was finally taken. Nine Senators who had been supporters of the transgender bill switched their votes, and the bill was voted "back to committee", which was its death knell.

After the vote, the head of Maryland Equality told a gay blog that she was "shocked and appalled" that the bill failed. Even that morning they thought they had the votes. And this was despite the fact that the bill had been watered down considerably over the past several months in the House and Senate.

Of course, the homosexual / transgender lobby in Maryland has vowed to bring this back again next year. But this was a great, inspiring victory for the pro-family cause!

The few from our side that didn't give up

Most of Maryland's pro-family movement unfortunately wasn't interested in fighting the Transgender Bill, or had simply given up when things looked bad. But luckily for us all, there were a few that stood their ground and persevered.

Among the lessons to be learned are: (1) Never give up, no matter how bad it looks; and (2) Don't be afraid of nasty, liberal politicians.

But also, one the activists emailed this to MassResistance right after the vote: