An openly gay Falls Church City Council member, Lawrence Webb, issued a statement against the “conscience clause legislation,” saying that he and his partner want to adopt a baby.
The Virginia legislation would allow private adoption agencies to turn away parents based on sexual orientation or religious and moral beliefs.
"My partner and I want to adopt at some point," but said that "as born and bred a Virginian as you can get," he does not want to have to move to Maryland to do it. "I would want our children to grow up in Falls Church," he said, adding, "Children don't care about the sex of their parents, they just want a loving, stable home and people to provide for them."
*Gov. Martin O’Malley signed his gay marriage bill into law Thursday, making Maryland the eighth state in the country to recognize same-sex marriages.
O’Malley championed this cause himself and the victory was uncertain at best, getting shelved in the House of Delegates in 2011 and only narrowly passing this year.
The law won’t go into effect until 2013 at the earliest, and it won’t be smooth sailing for the bill until then. Opponents are working to collect more than 56,000 signatures opposing the bill to trigger a statewide referendum on the issue. They received approval from Maryland’s Board of Elections about on the language they’ll use if they collect enough signatures to bring the pending law to the ballot.
*Déjà vu? Nope. The House introduced a two-year $85 billion budget for a third time Thursday.
The Senate has rejected two pervious budgets and the GOP is hoping at least one Democrat votes in favor of the budget in the split Senate to pass the budget before the March 10 deadline.
The House is expected to debate the budget Friday and the budget should head to the Senate on Monday.
* Mitt Romney and Ron Paul may be the only two candidates on the Virginia GOP primary ballot next week, but don’t assume the election is a lock-in for frontrunner Romney.
NBC’s Ryan Nobles reports that there is a fear among some in the Romney camp that because Virginia has an open primary—or a primary where any identifying Republican, Democrat or independent can participate— independent voters will head to the polls and vote for Paul.
The primary comes just a week after the Michigan primary where Rick Santorum encouraged Democrats to get out and vote against Romney.
“The Romney campaign is worried there are many others like her -- Republicans who aren’t ready to support the former Massachusetts governor and those who like Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, who are the other candidates still in the race, but are not on the ballot.”
* Oops. Looks like Gov. Martin O’Malley needs to put a dollar in the cursing jar.
The governor seemed to let his emotions get the best of him during an interview on News Channel 8 Thursday morning when he defended his plan to plug the state’s budget hole by increasing some taxes
"Look, nothing would make me happier than to say, hey, let's just do it all with cuts, and improve teacher salaries, pensions and education at the same time. The world doesn't work like that, and it's bulls*** to say it does."
* The legislation commonly known as the “Tim Tebow Bill” died in a Virginia Senate Committee Thursday.
The bill would have allowed home schooled students to participate in school sports teams—an ode to NFL star Tim Tebow who was home schooled in Florida but played football for his neighborhood school.
