State Del. Neil Parrott (R-Dickwad) could not stand that the Maryland state legislature passed and Gov. Martin O'Malley signed into law the Fairness for All Marylanders Act, which provided equal rights for Maryland's transgender residents.
So he decided that there needed to be a referendum against what he labeled "the Bathroom Bill."
As a parent, you should be able to send your children, your little girl, into the women’s bathroom and have the expectation that there will only be women or girls in that bathroom. It opens the door for predators to take advantage of this bill. Predators will be able to go into the opposite gender bathroom, and proprietors would not be able to deny them access to that bathroom.
--Parrott
The Fearmonger Shoppe was open for business.
While we didn't have much reason to fear such a referendum, since 71% of Marylanders supported FAMA according to polls, there is always an outside chance things can go badly when you ask people to vote on the rights of transgender people.
Parrott's group needed to raise 55,737 signatures by June 30 in order to put FAMA on the ballot in November...and 1/3 of those signatures (18,579) needed to be submitted by yesterday.
At midnight last night, Equality Maryland announced on its Facebook page that Parrott's forces did not even show up to submit the signatures they had collected, since they had not collected enough.
It is a dead, Parrott.