GAY MARRIAGE

Bangor Daily News- Maine sent mixed messages about extending voting rights to women, before finally doing so. After the Legislature strongly endorsed women's suffrage in 1917, a people's veto took back those voting rights. Two years later, however, Maine voters changed course and voted to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which extended the right to vote to women.

NPR - "If you are someone running for office and want to be re-elected, you're not going to feel better today about supporting same-sex marriage," says Richard Socarides, a former adviser on gay rights in the Clinton administration. "I mean, those are the facts."

Socarides says advocates may have to shift from a state-by-state strategy to a push in the federal courts. Two major lawsuits are now pending: One case in California argues that state bans on gay marriage violate the federal Constitution; another case challenges the federal Defense of Marriage Act. . .

Maine Politics - John Aravosis at America Blog has noted that Organizing for America, the successor to the Obama campaign and now a part of the DNC, sent an email to its Maine list asking them to phone bank for Governor Corzine's re-election in New Jersey but failing to mention the election in Maine. The DNC has apparently denied that such an email was sent to Mainers, but I can confirm that I received it and have never been on their list as anything but a resident of Maine.

Washington Blade - David Mixner, a gay Democratic activist, said national LGBT groups must rethink their strategy on how to achieve marriage rights for same-sex couples in the country. "I think that we have to completely evaluate where we're going, what our strategy is and what kind of leaders we need in this kind of movement," Mixner said. "We cannot continue as we have been continuing for the last two decades and hope that maybe in five or 10 years we'll finally get across the 50 percent mark.". . . ."Do we continue spending $50 [million] or $100 million every two years on these initiatives, or is there a way to think out of the box and approach this differently?" he said. "One thing is clear = proceeding as [we] have been proceeding is totally unacceptable, and the national organizations have to hear that loud and clea