There is an old election saying: As Maine goes so goes the country. Today voters in Maine have the chance to either support or reject gay marriage. Hopefully, Maine voters will go to support, and so will the country. The gay marriage law was passed in May but never went into effect because of a conservative petition. New England is typically one of the most supportive regions of gay marriage and this law being repealed would be quite a hard blow to gay rights activists. Don't follow in California's footsteps!!
Click on the title for a link to a blog about this issue
14 comments:
It would be a shame if Maine followed in California's footsteps. What I find really disturbing is that what happened in California has happened in so many other states. According to this article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/us/28maine.html?scp=2&sq=maine%20referendum&st=cse), "if Maine’s law is upheld...it would be the movement’s first victory at the ballot box; voters in about 30 states have banned same-sex marriage."
-Esther A
What would be important to know would be if the marriage law was put into place by a referendum by the state legislature.
If the electorate was allowed to vote for the law in the first place, then I doubt this repeal would be successful. In other words, if voters supported gay marriage in the first place, why would they change their opinions?
Yes, I agree with Kevin. If voters supported gay marriage to begin with, there would be no need for them to change that. It really depends on what voters say and believe in. If Maine was a state that believed in this law, they wouldn't follow other states, because they won't get enough of those votes to pass that law.
I am very disappointed that the voter's of Maine voted to repeal the law, and thus make gay marriage illegal. According to this article (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/maine-gay-marriage-law-repealed/story?id=8992720), "With 87 percent of precincts reporting as of 2 a.m. today, gay marriage opponents claimed 53 percent of the vote to supporters' 47 percent." This is a step backwards, and unfortunately, becoming a national trend (as Esther said, Maine is now the 31st state to ban same-sex marriage).
It's really unfortunate that just when it seemed equal rights for all was becoming a reality we slowly began to take steps in the wrong direction. If even in California, arguably one of the most liberal states in the union, same-sex marriage wasn't passed, you had to figure that same-sex marriage wouldn't go over that well in other parts of the U.S.
Oh and I forgot to mention that we can all participate in an international movement to support gay marriage by wearing black this Friday :)
There will be a day where Californians will look back and say, "Wow, we were stupid."
I'm confused. Why did the people of Maine change their minds?
Actually, I think I can answer my own question. The support for gay marriage faded because there aren't as many outspoken gays as there are outspoken anti-gays.
Or maybe this law was proposed and passed by the legislature, and not by a direct vote.
It is a disappointment that the people of Maine decided to repeal the law, and thus ban same sex marriage. But I can see how it happened, to agree with Lizzy, if California did not even uphold gay marriage, what was the hope that the rest of the country would? I guess it is the opinion of the voters, and many people believe that gay marriage should not be allowed, and I guess people are not going to change their minds. We may look back one day and wish that there had been some other outcome, but for now we are going to have to live with our decisions.
-Jane Hayashi-
"We may look back one day and wish that there had been some other outcome, but for now we are going to have to live with our decisions."
Who's we? And what do you mean by "our decisions"?
Most of us can't even vote yet, how can we be part of the problem?
Trust me, we are not responsible for the failings and decisions of others.
Nooo. It's really disappointing how people in America aren't supporting gay rights. Our country is supposed to be the land of the free, but we can't let gays get married? It just doesn't seem to make sense.
It's good to see that most, if not all of us are pretty liberal. However, the whole country is not like that, and it's apparent that there were more outspoken anti-gay marriage people in Maine. Gay rights, to me, is the new civil rights movement, with a little less police brutality (or at least publicized police brutality). We can all hope that as our generation grows up, we can be a little more open minded. However, I don't know if the kids in Texas are being taught the same way we are. California is a pretty liberal state (just look at San Francisco), but if the kids of the more conservative states share the same mindset as their parents, the outlook for increasing gay rights at a quick pace is not good.
-Henry Zhang
I can't say that I am disappointed that Maine would vote that way because I'm not surprised. Majority of the country is not as liberal as you might think, like as Henry mentioned. It'll take awhile before the country, as a whole, comes to recognize gay marriage.
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