I appreciate your pessimism. Optimism kills efforts.
Here's the upside: like Prop 8, Q1 picked up a few percentage points from the people who vote "no" in cases of uncertainty. One despondent Prop. 8 opponent estimated this number at as much as 5%.
Also, the gay activists blew $4 million in Maine without success, compared to the $2.5 million of successful marriage defenders. That's money that won't be influencing anywhere else.
If Maine witnesses the same kind of thuggery witnessed in the aftermath of Prop 8, that could also turn a few people away.
Democratically speaking, the key will be to swing about 20% of young people from the pro-SSM side to the traditional side. This is doable. Ten years ago, few adults would have thought SSM was a real threat, so we weren't preparing young people to avoid going wacky. We're a lot less naive now, and we're learning how to do this without sounding like the constipated village elders from Footloose.
I hear Maine focused on the threat of teaching about SSM in schools. That won't play to the 18-29 set, who don't have schoolkids and think they themselves are perfectly mature enough to handle "edgy" topics. A new approach is needed.
The elite level will be tough, since academia, the press, Hollywood, and some businesses and churches are now fully on the radicals' side. (And Dick Cheney, the turncoat...)
However, the press, Hollywood and liberal churches are declining in power.
If conservative churchgoing declines, and if pornography continues to undermine standards, things will be tough. But Progressives' belief in the inevitability of their victory is a weakness as well as a strength.
Just being honest. These referendums would of won 95-5 if they were held 50 years ago.. 80-20 if they were held 20 years ago.
It’s only a matter of time with the public school system indoctrination going on.