Remember the Maine! |
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| By: marcos Wednesday November 4, 2009 9:21 am | |
Maine voters rejected (74%) a decrease in the car tax, rejected (60%) voter approval of tax increases and supported (58%) medical cannabis, and supported a highway bond (65%) all progressive positions.
Why did same sex marriage fare so poorly in that favorable electoral climate? They can’t blame the black folks this time.
Some people getting paid to "lead" this "movement" have got some ‘splaining to do. Again.
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11 Comments
WEll, apparently it was the use of the word “marriage” on the ballot that did it. When “equality” is the issue, people support it, just not, as Bill in portland put it, the ‘ick’ factor of all the word marriage implies. they say it’s mostly the over 65 crowd that defeated no on1 but i remain unconvinced that’s true for now.
also you’re right. there was no ground game for no on1 in the second CD apparently, where the less educated mainers live, sposedly.
Lesson: do not seek same sex marriage through the legislature or the courts unless you have the public behind you.
In Maine as in California, the public was behind same sex marriage, but after a campaign, both ended up falling short.
Now, either the yes campaign was that good, or the no campaign was that bad or little from column A and a little from column B.
Far be it for the Veal Pen to separate the goodness of their intent from the errors in execution so that they might learn from this and move forward better informed.
Perhaps Mainers were offended in a way similar to NY-23, that outsiders were parachuting into their area telling them how to vote?
I wonder if gay marriage is a bad thing to go on about; a poor strategy similar to the early feminists strategy of pursuing the vote before any of their other issues. In the end by the time they got the vote they had also already got everything else.
I dunno since I’m not gay and trying to get married, but it seems like the marriage thing is more an insult than an injury if civil union is on offer too. Aren’t there a load of rights issues for LGBT that have more of an impact?
At any rate try again in a year or two when more old bigots have died. I would not like to be on the “winning” side staring down the barrel of that demographic landslide. What do the religious nuts think they can do? At best they can spend all their money and efforts to fight a few battles when everyone can plainly see they have lost the war.
Or did I just describe all of conservatism on any issue they ever fought us on?
I suppose a loss is still a loss and many individuals in Maine will be caused harm by this.
I was so bummed at the No on 1 news. Ugh.
“At any rate try again in a year or two when more old bigots have died.” is what was decided in CA; what I find curious is why the LGBT community doesn’t push back using the ideas that:
1. Marriage is a civil union as exemplified by the government requiring a ‘license’; it is NOT solely a religious issue;
2. For those for whom it is a religious issue, make them say what they really believe and that is they do NOT believe in the Constitution which provides for the separation of church and State and therefore those who oppose LGBT ‘marriage’ ARE UN-AMERICAN !!
As someone raised Mormon and still surrounded by them, I wish there were more emphasis on making it absolutely clear that clergy of various religions will not be required to perform or recognize gay marriages as a religious issue. I know so many Mormons who feel really conflicted about the church’s stand but are swayed in the end by the argument that if gay marriage is recognized, the church will be forced to perform gay marriages in its temples. The establishment will still call on them to contribute and fight against gay marriage regardless, but if clarified many more of the members would quietly decline to go along with it.
I live in hard core Prop 8 evangelical and Mormon land and my daughter reports that gay couples make out openly at her high school and the only people who complain are the same ones who complain about heterosexual couples making out in public. It won’t be that many years before they are voting. In the meantime, we need to appeal to those like myself who were raised to discriminate but have lived our adult lives in a more diverse world and come to see that as a good thing, not a threat. I know so many more wobblers than I ever see acknowledged in national media. I wish more effort were made nationally to wobble them the right way.
At a local election night party yesterday, a friend of mine from Utah who is not Mormon related to me how many urban Mormons felt ashamed that their church corporation takes their money and advocated against Prop 8 because that was not their position.
Our side errs when we try to cast a people as bad because some of them have a political perspective that we oppose.
That said, there is no arguing with some fundamentalists when they can always pull out some variant of “God put fossils on earth to test our faith.”
Because the people who are in the insider campaign clique are as incompetent as they are availed of tens of millions of dollars from conservative LGBT.
Remember, that the LGBT agenda for the past 20 years has been almost exclusively gays in the military and same sex marriage, two very conservative and controversial policies. Gays in the military is dead in the water, and wherever same sex marriage has gone up for a vote, it has lost. That not only paints LGBT as weak and vulnerable, it empowers the homophobes and gives a green light to second class citizenship.
Contrast that to scant resources dedicated to enacting ENDA, employment protection, and an as of yet unmateralized housing protection bill, which are less controversial and more mainstream, progressive, and you’ve got one intentional train wreck instigated by those whose money allows them to dominate the debate through ill advised, premature court cases.
We need to get to a point where it is not acceptable to subject civil rights protections to majority vote.
It will be.
Do you not get it? The Mormon church used to say black people were satanic or something didn’t they? How’s that one going? This is bigger than about gay rights. If you are conservative like the Mormon church you are fighting against progress and will eventually lose everything. EVERYTHING. Sure this round nobody’s going to say you have to marry gay people in Mormon churches but you surely know that in twenty years time if they are not doing that people will look at Mormons like they were total assholes.
So their fears are not exactly irrational. Their way of life (ie hating people because of how they were born) is under threat. And so it should be. And it won’t stop at changing the law either.
“but are swayed in the end by the argument that if gay marriage is recognized, the church will be forced to perform gay marriages in its temples.” ; which is an absolute lie and those that push it ought to be confronted by “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”