Prince George's County Executive Candidate C. Anthony Muse's history of opposition to laws protecting LGBT people

Longtime Maryland State Senator C. Anthony Muse announced yesterday that he is running for the Democratic Party nomination to succeed Rushern Baker as Prince George's County Executive.

LGBT people, their families, their friends, and all people who support equal rights and treatment of LGBT people should be concerned.  From 2007 until 2014, Senator Muse opposed, and was in a position often to block, legislation barring discrimination against the LGBT community.  In 2007, as a member of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, he voted against protections for transgender people, and his vote prevented the full Senate from voting on an anti-discrimination bill, even though he had previously indicated support.  See here.

In 2008, again as a swing vote on the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, he indicated opposition to Civil Marriage Equality at the hearing on S. 290, although he left the meeting before testimony from the public.  As a Board member of the Metro DC Chapter of PFLAG, I wrote to Senator Muse, hoping to address the concerns he set forth at the meeting.  This, and other appeals, had insufficient impact; Senator Muse helped block S. 290, and set forth his theologically based reasons in statements given to the Washington Post.

In 2011, Senator Muse again opposed Civil Marriage Equality.  Note this excerpt from a Post report:

"Here's my question: Where does it stop?" asked Sen. C. Anthony Muse (D-Prince George's), who is also senior pastor at the Ark of Safety Christian Church of Upper Marlboro. He questioned whether polygamy or marriage between people of very different ages would one day be acceptable.

The next year, 2012, Civil Marriage Equality was enacted by the Maryland General Assembly, but Senator Muse continued his vociferous opposition. See here.  Indeed, he was a leader in the unsuccessful effort to overturn the Civil Marriage Equality law by referendum, publishing an impassioned op-ed piece in the Post just a couple of weeks before the referendum vote.

A few months later, in March 2013, Senator Muse was a key Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee vote blocking a bill to extend anti-discrimination protections to transgender people.  See here.

Happily, however, the next year, Senator Muse voted in favor of the Fairness for All Marylanders Act, extending civil rights protections to people regardless of gender identity, and it became law in May 2014. See here.

So has Senator Muse had a change of heart on LGBT matters?  With respect to transgender people, it would appear so.  But with respect to gay people, there is no reason to believe that his views have changed. In any event, the burden is on the prospective County Executive to show that he has moved passed the things he said at least as recently as 2012.