The ghost of Joseph Stalin must have been applauding when the Maryland General Assembly held a kangaroo hearing regarding a controversial proposed bill in the Maryland General Assembly that could potentially imprison Maryland men for writing a romantic letter to a foreign women, if they use an International dating site. Those crimes can be avoided if Maryland men agree to submit fingerprints and background checks before communication can begin with a foreign woman.
In my mind, Maryland HB 65 was a draconian male bashing law, so I was determined to testify against the bill at a hearing held in the Maryland House of Delegates, Economic Matters Committee, chaired by Delegate Dereck Davis.
“(Delegate) Dereck Davis always gets what he wantsâ€Â, warned an anonymous legislator on a previous visit. My apprehension only increased when he offered his assistance on the blog site of the lead sponsor, Delegate Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio, to help secure successful passage of the bill.
With little experience about legislative procedures, I was about be indoctrinated into a pathetic system whereby elected representatives show arrogance and disrespect toward individual citizens like myself, while favoring special interest groups with lots of money and a hidden agenda.
The first hint of dubious maneuvering occurred when the Legislature announced a hearing for the Senate version of the bill at 2:00 pm on February 3- one hour after the House hearing, a potential scheduling conflict since there were numerous bills to be heard in random order and in different buildings. Delegate Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio, (considered a rising star in MD politics) and myself would be presenting testimony so we both arrived at the House Economic Matters Committee shortly before 1:00 pm, on February 3, 2010.
Though we never spoke with each other during the hearing, Delegate Haddaway-Riccio often looked in my direction, and her interpersonal language revealed anger. Two weeks earlier, her character had been attacked on various web sites by individual men who were opposed to a law seen as a violation of men’s privacy rights.
Unbeknown to me, the Senate hearing had started at 1:45 pm, much earlier than scheduled.Feeling somewhat disappointed about missing the Senate hearing, my spirits began to rise when chairman Dereck Davis began the House hearing for HB 65 later that the afternoon.
Delegate Sue Hecht, a co sponsor, was one of the first to testify with a rather terse voice, touting the bill as an ostensible measure. But her presence at the hearing was viewed as a retaliatory expose associated with my announcement (on a blog site) to thwart her re election prospects.
Shortly after Delegate Haddaway-Riccio presented her testimony, a lobbyist from the Polaris project, an anti trafficking group, testified with a self serving hidden agenda typical of special interests groups. Sex trafficking is not relevant to the topic of International matchmaking which involves exchanging e mails for romantic purposes.
Finally, it was my turn to provide testimony. “HB 65, Regulation of Marriage Brokers is a fraud. Nobody is being sold or traded as the title of the deceptively implies. These are merely dating sites that provide names , addresses and phone numbers so that a Maryland citizen can initiate communication (as in saying “helloâ€Â) with a foreign woman.”
It wasn’t long before the committee chairman, Dereck Davis, reprimanded me for criticizing Delegate Hadddaway-Riccio. Never mind the fact that the Delegates who sponsored this bill took an oath to defend the Constitution and then sponsored a blatantly unconstitutional law that makes the act of sending a love letter a crime. So, ordinary citizens are not supposed to ruffle feathers and civilly criticize the sponsors at a public hearing?
Undeterred by the chairman’s bullying tactics, I then explained how Delegate Haddaway-Riccio was a parrot for the special interest groups who have made sensational claims that American men who date foreign women “are often rapists, sexual predators… many are premeditated torturers”, even though a 1999 INS study shows the abuse rate in International marriages is one-seventh the abuse rate of domestic marriages.
At the end of the hearing, Delegate Donna Stifler angrily mentioned my letters and blog posts that were delightfully crafted to embarrass the sponsors of the law, including herself.
It has become apparent that Maryland legislators are completely out of touch with reality, as evidenced by the retaliatory behavior directed towards individual citizens such as myself with the courage to speak out and challenge the system. The real culprits are the politicians who sponsor blatantly unconstitutional laws at the beckoning of special interest groups with lots of money and a self serving hidden political agenda.
In the meantime, American citizens should pay close attention to the final outcome of the Maryland bill which is bound to spur copycat legislation in other states.
