Joan Desmond writes in the National Catholic Register about the internal debates among Catholics that took place leading up to SSM eventually being defeated in Maryland earlier this month:

The Maryland House of Delegates “killed” a bill March 11 that sought to legalize same-sex “marriage” in the state.

The House of Delegates sent the bill back to the Judiciary Committee — a move described in The Washington Post as “an acknowledgment by supporters that it did not have sufficient votes to pass on the floor.” It was an unexpected conclusion to an intense political fight that pitted key Democratic lawmakers who are Catholic, but whose votes were contrary to Church doctrine, against the leaders of their Church.

Local Catholic pastors applauded the outcome, yet the disconnect between the public stance of the Maryland Catholic Conference and prominent Democrats like Gov. Martin O’Malley remains unresolved. Is the source of the problem a failure of catechesis or the triumph of partisan loyalties — or both? Certainly, the battle lines underscored the difficulty of changing minds and hearts in a society that increasingly views same-sex “marriage” as a fundamental civil right.