In 2006 he made his opposition to same-sex marriage a big part of his campaign locally, and supported a state amendment banning it, along with civil unions. But the really telling moment for me was back in 2002, when he and Ehrlich were running against Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

In March of that year, Maryland’s gay community witnessed a horror at Maryland Shock Trauma, which barred William Robert Flanigan Jr. from his dying partner’s bedside, saying he was not “family”, and that “partners” did not qualify, even though he had power of attorney. Asked during the campaign about extending state anti-discrimination laws to include gay people, Steele =instantly= replied that there were already enough laws on the books protecting “gay white men”.

I wish I had a link for that but I don’t, but I remember it vividly. Also the outrage on the gay listserves I was on at the time. Steele took a question about sexual orientation, and turned it into a question about race and white privilege. And he did it reflexively. It just came right out of the man.

Steele puts his opposition to same-sex marriage firmly in a religious context. He uses the same rhetoric about marriage not being a human institution, but a God ordained one, that other religious right figures use. It’s a safe bet that will not even attempt to budge his party inch on granting same-sex couples any respect in the eyes of the law. If anything, he’ll try to harden attitudes on that issue even more. But where you really see the man in my opinion, was in 2002 when he was even opposed to including gay citizens in the state’s anti-discrimination laws, and he voiced his opposition to that in a way that turned it into an issue of race.

Let let it be said his running mate, Ehrlich, after winning the election, vetoed a very minimalist partner’s registry bill that would have given same-sex couples hospital visitation rights. If there was any difference in attitude between the two men toward gay citizens, you never saw it in public the entire time they held office together. If all that’s being said now is that Steele is no Sally Kern, that’s not saying anything.