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"church going African American dems overwhelmingly support traditional marriage....I wonder if just maybe so long as they are at the polls to vote for marriage, that they could be persuaded to vote for Steele? That would be incredible!

Not only that...Steele would then win!"

In Ohio in 2004, a marriage-protection amendment was on the November ballot. Some analysts theorized that the referendum might, counterintuitively, *hurt* President Bush, since blacks were strongly opposed to gay marriage and might vote in larger percentages than usual, but would still vote Democrat, thereby hurting Bush more than any possible increase in the white conservative vote that he might get. Well, black turnout certainly went up, with Ohio blacks voting "yes" on traditional marriage even larger percentages than did Ohio whites, and guess what? Ohio blacks gave President Bush 17% of the vote, almost twice as much as the 9% he got from Ohio blacks in 2000; the marriage issue galvanized black conservatives and helped culturally conservative blacks recognize that the Democrat Party had deserted them on the issues they hold dear. The marriage-protection amendment allowed President Bush to win Ohio by over 2%, far beyond recount range.

In Maryland, I would assume that support for gay marriage is a bit higher than in Ohio, but not that much higher. Maryland is far more Democrat than Ohio (President Bush got only 43% in MD versus 51% in OH), but blacks form a much higher percentage of MD Democrats than of OH Democrats, so the percentage of Democrats for gay marriage in MD will be lower than the percentage of Democrats for gay marriage in OH. I think getting a marriage-protection amendment on the ballot would give Governor Ehrlich and Lt. Gov. Steele a great boost in the gubernatorial and senatorial race, respectively.