Custom Fields on the Homepage

So I have a custom field on my posts called “Link” Using this, on my post page, I’m checking to see if the field has a value. If it does, I’d like to switch out the title link with the “Link” value, much the same way Daring Fireball does for Linked List items.

I have the code working on my post page, with some code in my theme’s functions.php, I have it working for RSS feeds.

I did this using this tutorial: http://johanbrook.com/development/wordpress/linked-list-style-posts-in-wordpress/

However, I can’t seem to get it to work on the homepage.

This code works fine, as it’s basically the standard loop:

<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
	<h2 class="title"><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
	<p class="dateline"><em><?php the_time('l, F jS, Y'); ?></em></p>
	<p><?php the_content('Read More'); ?>
	<hr>
<?php endwhile; else: ?>
	<p><?php _e('Sorry, there are no posts.'); ?></p>
<?php endif; ?>

However, I’m trying to use the following code:

<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
         <?php $meta_link = get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), “Link”, true); ?>
		<?php if($meta_link):?>
      			<h2 class=title><a title="follow link" href="<?php echo $meta_link;?>"><?php the_title();?></a> →</h2>
			<p class="dateline"><em><?php the_time('l, F jS, Y'); ?></em></p>
			<p><?php the_content(‘Read More’); ?></p>
			<br />
			<p><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">↵</a></p>
 		<?php else: ?>
      			<h2 class=title><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
			<p class="dateline"><em><?php the_time('l, F jS, Y'); ?></em></p>
			<p><?php the_content(‘Read More’); ?></p>
			<br />
   		<?php endif; ?>

<?php endwhile; else: ?>
	<p>Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.</p>
<?php endif; ?>

When I do, my homepage is entirely blank — even though very similar code is working on my posts pages.

Any ideas as to how I can get this working?