Posted on 10/27/2009 1:36:31 PM PDT by Steelfish
Maine Vote Is Focus of Gay-Marriage Fight
ABBY GOODNOUGH
October 27, 2009 A week before Maine voters decide whether to repeal the state’s new same-sex marriage law, donations and volunteers are pouring in to sway what both sides call a nationally significant fight.
Bonnie Johnstone, a volunteer for Stand For Marriage Maine, last week called potential supporters of a bill to block gay marriage in Maine. Some of the campaign's defaced signs were displayed on the wall.
Supporters of the marriage law, which the Legislature approved in May, have far more money and ground troops than opponents, who have been led by the Catholic Church. Yet most polls show the two sides neck and neck, suggesting that gay couples here, as in California last year, could lose the right to marry just six months after they gained it.
Although Maine’s population is a tiny fraction of California’s and the battle here has been comparatively low profile, it comes at a crucial point in the same-sex marriage movement. Still reeling from last year’s defeat in California, gay-rights advocates say a defeat here could further a perception that only judges and politicians embrace same-sex marriage.
But 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.
Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts and Vermont allow gay couples to marry, but courts and legislatures, not voters, made it possible.
“It’s a defining moment,” said Marc Mutty, chairman of Stand for Marriage Maine, which is leading the repeal effort. “What happens here in Maine is going to have a mushrooming effect on the issue at large.”
Maine had planned to allow same-sex marriage starting in September, but put it off until the outcome of the referendum. It is the only state with...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“but courts and legislatures, not voters, made it(gay marriage) possible.”
....that’s because queers are very skillful in steering the issue away from popular vote....whenever the public is allowed to vote, they vote DOWN gay marriage.
No, homosexuals will NOT lose their right to marry. They will be able to marry anyone of the opposite sex, just like the rest of us. Anything else is not a ‘marriage’.
California is listening to Maine?
We already voted and passed prop 8.
More like: Maine is following Califonia’s lead. (With the same result, I hope)
Baker v. Nelson 409 U.S. 810 (1972) is the appropriate precedent on the marriage issue, not Loving. Sorry for you.
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