Gay Rights Win in Maine Heralds Progress in 2006

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• Reader Comments (2)

  Page 1 of 1 pages

  When other minorities have had to battle against the use of law as a bludgeon by activist pluralities…

  (I won’t be saying “majorities” any more on this issue; the majority don’t get off their asses to vote for anything except on the rarest occasion, and even then it’ll be a very small “majority” as a function of total registered voters. Never a true majority, when compared to total eligible voters, registered or not)

  ...activist pluralities who wanted to keep them down, there was generally a push-and-pull as the more just and humane viewpoint grew, albeit with painful slowness. Nov 2004 was a dramatic slide backward for those of us who think every one of you should be able to marry whoever you love, but it’s a finite condition. When interracial marriage was outlawed in entire regions during past decades, time and effort on behalf of broader racial justice continued to be applied. Perfect or not (not, obviously), there’s certainly a better race-picture in more American minds than there was when I was a kid. And for all the unsolved racial issues still in hand, at the very least almost no one gets riled up about “miscegenation” or whatever they called it back in the day.

  (really awful designation, since “race” is an optical and historical illusion)

  So smiles to the relentless ones in Maine, may the victory last and be the stepping stone to more.

  Meantime, take a little vacation up north into Canada like two loving buddies of mine recently did, get yourself hitched for-real.

  Chip by little chip, that ol’ monolith gonna erode right into dust…

  Cool story. Hopeful.

  Posted by Kuya on Jan 9, 2006 at 9:13 AM

  Living in Maine my whole life, I had to deal with the embarasment and anger I felt when gay rights were defeated at the polls repeatedly due to what basicly ammounted to lies.  People like Mike Heath trotted out the old racist mantra of “special rights” to gain his wins in years past, claiming that gays would be given preferance over equally qualified straight people in job oppertunities.  Progressives still display the old bumper stickers from those battles that say “Equal rights are not special rights.”

  Part of the victory was due to a huge strategic failure by the CCL.  Abandoning thier “special rights” slogans which worked so well, they focused in on marriage.  I saw many signs that read “Vote yes on 1, protect marriage, protect Maine” despite the fact that the law actually contained language specifically stating that it could not be used as precident for legalizing gay marriage.  A joke I made, which became popular at my workplace due to the nonsequitorial nature of the posters, went “vote yes on one for better toast!”

  Maine is, generally, a left leaning state which also has the libertarian aspect of fighting state power.  When the CCL did their thing the last few times, they honed in on the concept that the state was forcing people to do things.  They won those elections by tricking people into thinking that the state was going to force them into hiring gay people while making God fearing straights live on the street.  They lost this one because they strayed from that path.

  Of course, that isn’t the whole story.  Maine’s gay rights groups also did it right this time.  They drove the issue home, which ended up in huge voter turnout.  That one thing, of course, is that Mike Heath feared the most.  Voter turnout is always bad for him, since the times that gay rights were defeated in Maine turnout was stunningly low.  This time it felt like a Presidential election, with almost half of Maine’s eligable voters coming to the polls.  That is always the sign of victory for progressives here.  The higher the turnout, the more liberal the results.

  I am just very proud of Maine.  We fought the good fight and lost many times, but we never gave up.  We never accepted that less than 1/4 of the electorate should decide the fate of this great state.  We finally mobilized enough people to defeat the right wing’s agenda (destroying equal rights by having votes in off years (one, IIRC, wasn’t even in November) when they hope nobody but them will vote) and secure equality in Maine. 

  Love won out this time.  I pray that this is the strart of a trend.

  Posted by Loshi on Jan 12, 2006 at 8:31 PM

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