Organizing to amend antidiscrimination statutes in Maryland

D. MacClellan, G. Greif

Federal law and statutes in most of the 50 states prohibit discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations on the basis of race, creed, sex, and national origin. However, only 12 states and the District of Columbia have statutes which include prohibitions of discrimination based on sexual orientation. Maryland became the twelfth state with such a provision when the State Legislature passed the Anti-Discrimination Act of 2001. The road to passage of this legislation was long and winding, beginning in 1976. This article describes one of the organizations involved in the effort, Free State Justice, and the strategies that led to eventual legislative success; the article also discusses how the dynamics and processes involved in initiating such efforts can be generalized to other settings.[Copies are available from: Haworth Document Delivery Center. The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580, USA]