When the captivating Rev. C. Anthony Muse took the pulpit at the funeral of a fellow state senator last month, he repeated a phrase throughout his eulogy like a gospel choir singing a refrain: "Well done, Senator Britt, we'll take it from here."
To many listeners in the pews that day, the phrase was a poignant way for Muse to pay tribute to the late Sen. Gwendolyn T. Britt and her long history as an activist. But the gay and lesbian attendees, who were shifting in the pews to exchange knowing looks, hoped the phrase meant something more. They hoped that Muse might literally take up Britt's latest civil rights struggle: legalizing same-sex marriage.
Muse is at the center of a religious-cultural debate on the meaning of marriage in Maryland. As an evangelical bishop and head of the Ark of Safety Christian Church, the lawmaker says he opposes gay marriage on religious grounds. But he also says that he is concerned about "fair, equal treatment" for gay couples. He has not made up his mind on civil unions.
Gay-rights proponents see Muse as their best hope of getting legislation recognizing same-sex unions through the Maryland General Assembly this year. He is one of a few pivotal votes on the deeply divided Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, which is scheduled to hold a hearing on bill to legalize gay marriage today, on Valentine's Day.
"He's experiencing the same tug of war on the issue as a lot of Christians," said Sen. Jamie Raskin, a lead sponsor of the gay-marriage bill. He met with Muse recently to try to win his support and brought up Britt's legacy as someone unafraid to stand up.
"If Senator Muse stood up for marriage equality like Senator Britt did before her untimely death, he would become a civil liberties hero to people across the nation," Raskin said.
Muse is building his political profile, taking over Britt's position as the head of the Prince George's County delegation this month. The 49-year-old has been involved in state politics for more than 15 years but spent only five in office. He served one term in the House of Delegates in the late 1990s, lost an election for county executive a few years later and then ran for an open seat in the Senate in 2006.
He says he was driven to serve by his religious upbringing with his adoptive father, the Rev. George Stansbury, who told him, "You can't just stay in the pulpit." Back then, Stansbury pastored at the St. James United Methodist Church on the corner of Monroe and Lexington in Baltimore, a corner for drug hawkers, where he helped people get off the streets and into jobs.
Stansbury also helped Muse, who says his early family life was marred by an abusive stepfather. Muse had gone through 11 foster families around the state until Stansbury adopted him. Muse followed his footsteps in the ministry, graduating from Morgan State University in Baltimore, then earning a master's from Wesley Theological Seminary and doctorate at Howard University.
Muse also became a pastor in the Methodist Church but landed in controversy when he and many of his parishioners splintered off, leaving behind $6 million in debt from a construction project that the remaining congregants couldn't pay. A dispute over Muse allegedly taking church property landed in court, with both sides eventually agreeing he had committed no wrongdoing.
Muse formed the Ark of Safety in the late 1990s and took over a converted, 85,000-square-foot shopping mall in Upper Marlboro. His wife, the First Lady Pat Lawson Muse, as she is known, is an elder at the church and a local TV news anchor. Stansbury, who recently retired from the Methodist Church, is a senior pastor.
Known for his soft-spoken demeanor in the Senate, Muse is an energetic preacher. (Sen. Brian E. Frosh, a Montgomery County Democrat, called his Britt eulogy a "tour de force" and observes: "If he were a rabbi, I would go to temple a lot more often.")
At his own church, Muse delivers the kind of stomping sermon that causes him to sweat so that his glasses slide down his nose until he wipes his brow and pushes them back into place. (He showers in his personal bathroom at the back of the church between services.)
It's the kind of church that doesn't need hymnals because everyone knows the gospel songs by heart. And it's the kind of service that gets people on their feet, arms raised, before it even begins.
Muse talks about racism and politics from the pulpit, and about prodding kids to do well in school and building a church that "doesn't step over our prostitutes or drug addicts."
Today, from his seat on the Judicial Proceedings Committee, Muse will be faced with hearings on both the gay-marriage bill and a constitutional amendment that would ban it.
Social conservatives have a solid voting bloc on the 11-member committee. Four Republicans and one Democrat, Sen. Norman R. Stone of Baltimore County, oppose same-sex unions, while four Democrats have made their support clear. That leaves the two remaining Democrats - Muse and Sen. James Brochin - as must-win votes for gay-rights activists.
Brochin, who hails from a conservative district in Baltimore County, said that he wants to extend the same rights to gay couples as married spouses and that civil unions are the only way get that done, given political realities.
Muse, who drew the ire of gay-rights activists last year by voting in committee against a bill that prohibited transgender discrimination, said he wants to respect religious views while focusing on the "human issues."
"People have a right to be where they want to be religiously, but you don't have that right when it comes to civil liberties that should be afforded to everyone," he said. "I'm trying to go that route so it doesn't become so controversial that everything is lost, and the whole issue simply dies."
laura.smitherman@baltsun.com