THE GAY MARRIAGE DEFEAT

Sam Smith, Progressive Review - Having lived most of my life in the gay friendly city of Washington, I wasn't prepared from some of the nastiness involved in the Maine gay marriage debate. Especially the sick video that claimed that the state's schools would be teaching gay marriage in class.

And while I knew the Pope was the George Wallace of gender, I had never been this close to the repulsive cruelty of the Catholic church on the issue, not to mention hypocritical - given the behavior of more than a few of its priests.

Finally, I realized too late how easy it was to slip into the media's assumption that this was just another issue - and not a major test of morality. It was only after the returns came in that it occurred to me how little the difference was between denying gays entry into marriage and denying a black kid's entry into a school or that kid's parent's entry into a restaurant. It was not just gay marriage being judged, but the rest of us as well. A minority's rights is not a gift to be bestowed but a strong reflection of our own honor and decency. And we failed.

The two state failure

In considering the vote, however, it is important to keep in mind that on some matters, Maine is two states, not one

Maine is, by east of the Mississippi standards, a huge state. It takes as long to drive from one end to the other as it does to go from Boston to Baltimore. Half that distance is in one county - known as "the county" or Aroostook. Aroostock is the largest county east of the Mississippi - the size of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined, but with a population of only 73,000. Seventy-three percent of its votes approved the repeal of gay marriage.

If you take the map above from the Portland Phoenix and draw a horizontal line where it says United States, you will have roughly divided the state into counties - the ones above the line - that voted 60% against gay marriage

Now note the blue counties on the map. All coastal, they are the four that supported gay marriage with Cumberland - home of Portland - casting 60% of its vote on its behalf. (Your editor's town, Freeport, voted 64% for gay marriage).

A vote for the establishment of religion

Among other reasons, the banning of gay marriage is illegal because its purpose and origin is based almost entirely on the principles of certain religions. To ban gay marriage is to establish some religions' beliefs as superior to those of others. Specifically, the Maine gay marriage vote makes the following lesser religions compared, say, to the Catholic Church:

The Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, Ecumenical Catholic Church, Church of God Anonymous, Alliance for Jewish Renewal, Reconstructionist Judaism, Reform Judaism, and Unitarian Universalist Association, which all approve of same sex marriage

The United Church of Christ, Episcopal and various Quaker groups leave the decision to clergy, congregations or local governing bodies. And, adds the Interfaith Workig Group, the Presbyterian Church (USA) allows the blessings of same-gender unions with terminology restrictions.

So the result was not just a repeal of gay marriage but a totally unconstitutional vote to restrict the rights of the aforementioned religion http://www.iwgonline.org/s

Time - Mainers' 53-47 vote to reject gay marriage does more than simply slap down a law that just six months ago had made Maine the U.S.'s second state to permit same-sex couples to wed. With voters thronging to the polls, the closely watched - and ultimately not very close - vote extended the winning streak of gay-marriage opponents nationwide, who have now prevailed in more than 30 straight state elections over whether to allow gays to marry. Just like Californians one year ago, Maine voters insisted on having their say on an issue that simply will not go away. . .

But Maine's vote, much like all of the states before it, including California's vote on Prop 8 a year ago, will do little to slow the fight over gay marriage. Not in Maine, where Tuesday's vote was only the equivalent of a veto and can be easily reversed by lawmakers when they next meet, and not in the rest of country, where the issue continues to roil courthouses and statehouses alike. "Ultimately, this is going to have to have a national resolution," says same-sex-marriage activist Mary Bonauto, one of the nation's top lawyers involved in the campaign to legalize gay marriage. "It's about aligning promises found in the Constitution with America's laws." A leader in Maine's campaign to uphold gay marriage, Bonauto is best known for arguing the same-sex case that led the Massachusetts Supreme Court to strike down prohibitions against gay marriage in a hugely influential 2003 decision that paved the way for that state to become the first to permit gay marriage in 2004.

That decision has been cited in numerous cases that have followed, as the number of states whose courts have demanded equal marriage rights for gays has grown. But those same cases have also helped fuel opponents, who say gay marriage is being foisted upon the U.S. by out-of-touch judges. In order to counter that argument, Bonauto and other gay-marriage activists in Maine who began organizing to press for gay marriage there decided to avoid taking the issue to court. Instead, they set about electing lawmakers who were friendly to their cause two years ago, and this year successfully convinced the legislature to become the nation's first to establish gay marriage by statute, rather than by decree. "Frankly, we had heard the criticisms about going the court route, and so we said, 'Fine, we'll go to the legislature,' " says Bonauto. "And it has been an incredible campaign." . . .

With the loss in Maine, the focus inevitably turns back to the courts, and for now that means back to California. That's where former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson and powerhouse attorney David Boies have brought a suit insisting that the Constitution forbids any law that prohibits gay marriage. Bonauto won't comment on the criticism that gay-rights groups heaped on Olson when he filed the case, saying it was premature given the heavily conservative bent of the federal judiciary. But she said to win across the country, gay-rights supporters must press the marriage case wherever the fight takes them, be it in courthouses, state capitols or voting booths. "It's never been an either-or choice," she says. "When the issue is one of social justice, we have to get the judicial branch involved. There is absolutely a role for the courts.". . .

Maine was supposed to be different. To begin with, it was the first state to legalize gay marriage by statute, and with the governor's support. When the unprecedented new law was challenged, supporters hoped that political backing from the governor, coupled with Maine's traditionally independent mind-set, would provide the breakthrough that gay-marriage supporters have been waiting for.

The vote prompted an outpouring of cash and other resources from far beyond the borders of the Pine Tree State. From New Jersey, the National Organization for Marriage sent a $1.8 million check to help defeat gay marriage. Gay couples in California and others still heartbroken over the Prop 8 vote sent lots of smaller checks to help bring the 'Vote No on 1' coalition some $4 million. On Tuesday, Californians manned phone banks to help encourage the vote, which Maine's Secretary of State told reporters Tuesday was exceptionally large. . .

Gay marriage bills are under consideration in New York and New Jersey, and Washington, D.C., city leaders are mulling whether to expand rights for same-sex couples, too. Olson and Boies' case is set for trial in January, and gay activists could learn soon how valid their fears about the federal judiciary are.

Boston Globe - Even with incomplete vote figures, the turnout was at least 53 percent of eligible voters. Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap says the figure could grow to around 60 percent -- approaching what Maine sees in a major election year.

Maine Public Broadcasting - [Jesse Connolly of Protect Maine Equality] has always maintained that same-sex marriage opponents deceived voters into thinking gay marriage and gay sex would be advocated and taught to students in public schools, even though Maine's attorney general and education commissioner said there was nothing in the law that related to school curricula. . .

For 14-year-old Sam Putnam and his family, the campaign for marriage equality has been a personal and gratifying one no matter what the outcome. Putnam was thrust into the spotlight last spring when he chose to testify on behalf of his two moms at a public hearing. His testimony was put on You Tube and before Putnam knew it, he was being asked to appear in a television advertisement and his classmates and teachers at Portland High School were offering their support.

"I talked about how I'm an average teenager, which I am," Putnam says. "I play sports for my school. I have a lot of friends. I'm an honor student. I participate in the community as much as I can and no matter what happens tonight, it's not going to change me as a person at all. It's just going to change the way my family is being seen."

Putnam will have to wait a while longer for his two moms to be recognized the way he'd like. But Maine Governor John Baldacci says that day is coming. "We may not get there as soon as I'd like to get there, but we're going to get there because that's the future."

Linda Hirshman, Daily Beast - I had hoped gay marriage would win out in Maine. I even gave them a little money (thank you to gay friends for a dinner). So when it lost, I was sorry . . .

But winning or losing makes no difference to the real question: what in the world was this issue doing in a referendum anyway? Isn't this exactly the kind of thing that James Madison invented the life-tenured federal judiciary to decide?

Recently, a bunch of legal scholars and influential commentators representing themselves as liberals, have suggested that it's not. The federal courts should just bow out, they say, of deciding things like gay marriage (and abortion rights). (Little-known fact: the Bow Out movement started with a suggestion that the Supreme Court had made a mistake when it integrated the schools. Imagine what the law would look like if the Brown court had waited until a majority of states were ready to pass the Civil Rights Acts.) Painful as it is to them, as sincere supporters of abortion rights/gay marriage/your issue here, these wise ones think the federal courts should follow the election returns. Only when a majority of states have legalized something should the federal courts find that it was a fundamental constitutional right all along.

Look at the damage, the law professors say, from the Court's "premature" decision to protect women's right to abortion in 1973. Why, bands of protesters are still showing up at the Supreme Court building with pictures of fetuses. How much better it would have been, they argue, to fight these grinding, state- by-state battles to protect women's choices, than to have legal abortion protected as a matter of equality and privacy for 36 years.

What these academic treatises ignore is the concern that Madison and others had that what they called the tyranny of the majority was legitimate. A majority, Madison predicted, often whipped up by demagogues, would oppress a helpless minority. . .

When confronted with gay marriage, a record number of states, red and blue, stood that carefully constructed system on its head. In the Maine gay marriage campaign, the popularly elected branches were invoked, when, in a matter of great human importance and intimacy, gay marriage should have been a matter of fundamental rights for the courts from the beginning. . .

That gay marriage has to run this gauntlet is not an accident. Before the Bow Out movement, most big social change claims made their way to the federal courts without this huge windup of state-by-state legislative efforts, which then alerted the opposition to the social change that was coming. More importantly, a thoroughly organized, heavily funded conservative movement is now securely ensconced on the political stage and has seen its tyrannical opportunity in the majoritarian vehicle of the referendum. The combination has pulled the American political system in a radical new direction the Founders actively opposed.

Charles C. Haynes, First Amendment Center - According to a 2008 survey taken by Public Religion Research, when asked whether they would favor allowing gay couples to marry "if the law guaranteed that no church or congregation would be required to perform marriages for gay couples," support for legalizing same-sex marriage jumped from 29% to 43%.

Portland Press Herald - The push to legalize same-sex marriage in Maine began in January, when hundreds of activists gathered at the State House to announce that Sen. Dennis Damon, D-Trenton, would sponsor a bill to change the definition of marriage.

The bill defined marriage as "the legally recognized union of two people" rather than "the union of one man and one woman joined in traditional monogamous marriage," a definition put in place by the Legislature in 1997.

It allowed any two people to apply for a marriage license "regardless of the sex of each person." And, finally, it allowed religious institutions to refuse to perform same-sex marriage if it is not consistent with their beliefs.

Rev. Bob Emrich of Palmyra: "God has given us this victory and it is very important for us to recognize that he is the one who put the energy into this campaign."