Gay Marriage/Civil Unions in 10 years

[Brittain33]

I'm not optimistic at the odds of gay marriage overcoming a "citizen's veto". Maine only upheld an anti-discrimination statute in 2005 by a 45-55 vote.

I share your concern, but I am buoyed by the knowledge that Equality Maine should know exactly what's ahead of them and has a strategy for fighting the veto. If the pro-marriage side in California had been organized and savvy, we would have defeated Prop 8. We have experience from Massachusetts about runnning media campaigns to forestall an amendment. I have to hope that people involved have gained knowledge about what works and what doesn't and Maine is a small enough market that we'll be able to try them all.

So we may well lose, but it will be a fair fight.

[Lunar]

And in my opinion one of the reasons the No on 8 campaign lost was that it was horribly mismanaged.  They didn't figure out until towards the end that they should be zeroing in on more than just old white people.  Even then, it was bad.  There was one ad narrated by Samuel Jackson, for example, but I didn't even realize it was him until like the fourth time I heard the ad -- if they had shown him actually talking it would have been fare more powerful.

Maine is a lot less demographically complex, I don't think the pro-marriage people will need mixed messaging

[Platypus]

As long as they keep the hollywood celebs more or less out of the campaign, po would win a referendum.

[Sbane]

And in my opinion one of the reasons the No on 8 campaign lost was that it was horribly mismanaged.  They didn't figure out until towards the end that they should be zeroing in on more than just old white people.  Even then, it was bad.  There was one ad narrated by Samuel Jackson, for example, but I didn't even realize it was him until like the fourth time I heard the ad -- if they had shown him actually talking it would have been fare more powerful.

Maine is a lot less demographically complex, I don't think the pro-marriage people will need mixed messaging

Yeah and the Yes on 8 people ran an excellent campaign. I could never figure out why they were advertising so heavily on progressive radio but considering about a 1/3rd of democrats voted yes, they knew what they were doing.

[Lunar]

I could comment further on No On 8, but I probably shouldn't.  It makes me sad thinking how basic concepts of messaging were managed.  Basically, they were overly concerned with being politically correct (basically too much emphasis on representing the entire rainbow of the community instead of the most accessible parts).


http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2009/05/gay-marriage-gets-another-asse.html

Interesting url lol.... anyway, Fred Thiele is the fifth Republican in the chamber to support gay marriage!


What what

[Holmes]

89 - 57

Holy crap guys, there was one Representative who said she knew that her daughter was gay for 15 years, but she was voting no on this because she disapproves of her daughter and disowned her. Or something. sh**tty parent.

It goes back to the Senate one more time for a vote tomorrow. Same time as New Hampshire. I wonder who'll pass it first!? I wanna stay home and follow this tomorrow...

[Bono]

These states are going about it the right way, instead of imposing it through judicial fiat.

[Devilman88]

These states are going about it the right way, instead of imposing it through judicial fiat.

Agreed, hopefully many more state do the same.

[Marokai Backbeat]

If only we did interracial marriage that way, amirite?

[Holmes]

You know, as I read more about the people's veto, and the equality's sides efforts, I'm becoming less and less worried. Right now I'm only worried about a possibly lower turnout, but we can't even say for sure that'll be the case.

I mean, MaineEquality has been working on this referendum for the past 3 years, and went into overdrive at the beginning of the year. Not to mention we have MaineEquality, GLAAD, the HRC, the NAACP and others working on our side. I mean, MaineEquality got 3000 people to dress up in red and bussed them to Augusta for the hearing, and got tens of thousands of people to send letters to Governor Baldacci.

The Equality side has to always stay positive(which iy always has), it needs to get out the vote(and I'm not worried about that from what I've seen), and it has a lot of cards to play, so it needs to play them perfectly. I mean New England is a small region, they can easily bus a lot of volunteers from other states, and should fight for more important endorsements and make sure everyone knows about them.

[Jacobtm]

If only we did interracial marriage that way, amirite?

I am 100% for extending the legal definition of "marriage" to include any 2 consenting adults, regardless of sex/gender/orientation/etc.

However, the fact is that if a state supreme court decides that based on their state constitution gay marriage can't be denied, voters can still simply change the constitution, as they have done in so many states in this country in the last few years.

So if we're looking for the institutionalization of gay marriage, imposing it on a hostile population only makes it more likely that gay marraige will be postponed for a longer time due to heat-of-the-moment constitutional referendums.

While it seems heartless to say that gays in state X shouldn't be allowed to marry because a majority of people there don't like them, the fact is that young people are much more in favor of gay marriage, so we just have to wait for older people to die before gay marriage will be politically acceptable in much broader swathes of the country. Trying to institute it too early could actually delay the process of institutionalizing gay marriage.

[Husker]

Map of gay marriage licenses issued by county in Iowa.

http://data.desmoinesregister.com/samesexmarriage/iowa-gay-marriage-map.php

Sorry guys, no same-sex couples getting their license in Sioux County!

Thanks for finding this. I know one of the Pottawatomie County IA ones was a same-sex female couple from Lincoln that made the front page of our newspaper the next day. From today's paper talking about stories that were commented on most in the last week, this was tops.

Victoria Ayotte writes: "Gay marriage is always a hot topic here in Nebraska. The story “Lincoln couple among many receiving marriage licenses in Iowa” garnered 164 published comments. The Journal Star finally had to stop approving comments because the story page had trouble loading. The positive gay marriage comments  outnumbered the negative ones more than 2-to-1.

“I’m happy for all these couples. Hopefully Nebraskans will see that this move by our more-enlightened neighbors to the East is a good one. Equality for all,” finally wrote.

Galen said: “Another shining example of how low we, as a society, have sunk.”

And R. SCOTT commented: “I think gay couples should be allowed to (be) as miserable as everyone else. Let them get married.”

I must say that I have been pleasantly surprised by how many people on the other side of the Missouri have been supportive of this. Kind of shows that a) people are definitely becoming more open minded on this issue and b) we aren't all a bunch of intolerant hicks here in the Midwest.

[Brittain33]

However, the fact is that if a state supreme court decides that based on their state constitution gay marriage can't be denied, voters can still simply change the constitution, as they have done in so many states in this country in the last few years.

So if we're looking for the institutionalization of gay marriage, imposing it on a hostile population only makes it more likely that gay marraige will be postponed for a longer time due to heat-of-the-moment constitutional referendums.

I understand what you're saying, but I disagree on your assessment of the tactics. Without Massachusetts's SJC having forced same-sex marriage in 2004, I feel confident that no state would have passed it legislatively. The court moved the ball forward. Similarly, without Vermont's Supreme Court having found for civil unions in 1999, Massachusetts wouldn't have gone whole hog for same sex marriage, nor would Vermont have become the first state to legislatively pass marriage ten years later.

Most states that amended their constitutions did so with legislative approval and 50%+1 of voters. Admittedly, in a lot of states the yes votes were way beyond 50%, but the point is that the threshold for amending the constitution in those states was very low. On such a contentious issue, the anti- side was always going to fight back. In most places, these amendments merely set the status quo in the constitution. The important part is, the threshold required to introduce gay marriage is the same as that required to overturn these past amendments. So we haven't lost anything at all by having the present mass opposition to gay marriage codified in the constitutions. Was South Carolina, Michigan, or Ohio going to pass same-sex marriage but only for these amendments?

There are exceptions. Amendments passed in states like Ohio and Michigan have led to the cancellation of DP benefits for government employees; that is a real loss for the duration of that policy. However, that is not an effect of DOMA that has majority support, and it's something we can fight back on. People can understand how it isn't just a symbolic issue, but has real effects for people.

Court rulings moved the ball way forward. It was then moved back, but not all the way back. We lose some battles but I have no doubt we will win the war, and the rulings in Vermont and Massachusetts were the equivalent of Anzio and Normandy.

In the meantime, the courts have provided a fair and educational hearing on the issues and the rulings have provided a road map to arguments in favor of same-sex marriage. The evidence has been heard and weighed. Discussions in state legislatures are rarely as enlightening and thoughtful.

[Holmes]

EqualityMaine has a statement on the passage of the law.

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Task Force Action lists some of what EqualityMaine has done. (I actually never heard of this Task Force before...)

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So, they've definitely been working on this for a long time and have their sh**t in order. Really, if they can get those 50,000 people to talk to 26 people each, they've basically covered the whole state's population.

[Verily]

The Maine Senate passed the gay marriage bill again, sending it to the governor. (Maine has a weird system where bills have to be doubly approved.) Baldacci will speak in a few minutes.

http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/newsupdate.php?updates/update-baldacci-to-speak-on-gay-marriage-bill

[Rowan]

Gay marriage now legal in Maine.

http://www.wmtw.com/family/19382995/detail.html?ref=fpbrk

[Marokai Backbeat]

Well done, Maine

[Devilman88]

So Maine is the fifth state to allow gay marriages

[Franzl]

Indeed, congratulations Maine!

[Brittain33]

I would not have bet a dime that this was going to be passed this year on its first try.

[Lunar]

So Maine is the fifth state to allow gay marriages

More importantly, it is the second state to do so legislatively, and the first non-crazyvermont one

It's a state that McCain and Obama ran ads in!  Holy crap!

[Nhoj]

so does this go into effect immediately? or is there like a six month wait.

[The Ex-Factor]

new england is the best england

Any updates on what John Lynch is thinking? Or why Rhode Island hasn't gotten with the program yet?

[Landslide Lyndon]

Or why Rhode Island hasn't gotten with the program yet?

The fact that it's the most Catholic state in the Union might have something to do with it.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Or why Rhode Island hasn't gotten with the program yet?

The fact that it's the most Catholic state in the Union might have something to do with it.

Still, it was the most Democratic state in 2004, wasn't it?