As Promised, Gay Marriage Legislation Unveiled in Delaware

You are now entering a gay-marriage-friendly state.

Yesterday, Delaware governor Jack Markell and a contingent of other leading politicians gathered in Wilmington to introduce new marriage-equality legislation. From here on out, it seems like the legislation’s passage is pretty much a done deal — mostly because the efforts needed to make it happen are pretty simple.

According to Slate, Delaware voters never amended the state’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Instead, there is a state-level statute that says you can’t marry people of the same gender. Therefore, legislators in the strongly Democratic state simply need to revise the statue and, ta-da!, Delaware is the tenth state in the country to let LGBTQers saunter down the aisle. But am I counting my little chickens before they hatch? Not according to Del. Senator Chris Coons.

Slate reports that Coons, a staunch supporter of marriage equality, sees little chance for backlash from opponents. There will be a “broad, strong debate,” he says, but, “We’ll be a state whose legal committment to marriage is strong.”

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