From the Washington Blade

Anti-gay Md. delegate retains seat

Dwyer squeaks in by just 28 votes

by Joshua Lynsen

Friday, December 8, 2006

A vehemently anti-gay Maryland state delegate will retain his seat after winning a close election contest. The race was too close to call in the days immediately following Nov. 7.

According to final tallies, Del. Don Dwyer (R) topped challenger Joan Cadden (D) by 28 votes in Anne Arundel County, the region surrounding Annapolis.

Dwyer took 17,557 votes to Cadden's 17,529 votes. The final tallies incorporated 198 absentee ballots for the District 31 race. Election officials said most of the absentee ballots came from overseas.

Dwyer made headlines earlier this year when he called for the impeachment of Baltimore Judge Brooke Murdoch, who ruled the state's definition of marriage as between one man and one woman unconstitutional. The ruling is being reviewed by the state's highest court.

He also lashed out in 2005 against activists seeking to expand public school curriculums to include gay topics.

"It's time that we all stand up and work together to defend our children, to take back our schools, and to return to a moral culture, to realize that the homosexual agenda -- not homosexuals, but the agenda -- is a cultural predator," he said during a public meeting. "It's going after the minds that are the most vulnerable, which are our children."

Equality Maryland Executive Director Dan Furmansky offered a mixed reaction to Dwyer's win.

"While we would all obviously prefer to see Del. Dwyer collecting an unemployment check rather than returning to the General Assembly, there is truly no better face of the anti-gay movement in Maryland," he said. "Del. Dwyer is zealotry personified."