PORTLAND, Maine – Cecelia Burnett and Ann Swanson had already set their wedding date. When they joined about 1,000 other gay marriage supporters for an election night party in a Holiday Inn ballroom, they hoped to celebrate the vote that would make it possible.Some have suggested that this was Obama's one real win last night. Despite all his promises to the gay "rights" crowd, he's never come out in favor of gay marriage and has in fact gone on record to oppose it.
Instead, they went home at midnight, dejected and near tears after a failed bid to make Maine the first state to approve same-sex marriage at the ballot box.
“I’m ready to start crying,” said Burnett, a 58-year-old massage therapist, walking out of the ballroom with Swanson at her side. “I don’t understand what the fear is, why people are so afraid of this change.
“It hurts. It hurts personally,” she said. “It’s a personal rejection of us and our relationship, and I don’t understand what the fear is.”
With 87 percent of precincts reporting, gay-marriage foes had 53 percent of the vote in a referendum that asked Maine voters whether they wanted to repeal a law allowing same-sex marriage that had passed the Legislature and was signed by Democratic Gov. John Baldacci.
“The institution of marriage has been preserved in Maine and across the nation,” said Frank Schubert, the chief organizer for Stand for Marriage Maine, which lobbied for the repeal.
For the gay rights movement, which has gained a foothold in New England, it was a stinging defeat. Gay marriage has now lost in every state — 31 in all — in which it has been put to a popular vote. Gay-rights activists had hoped to buck that trend in Maine, framing same-sex marriage as a matter of equality for all families in a campaign that used 8,000 volunteers to get out the message.
Five states have legalized gay marriage — Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut — but all did so through legislation or court rulings, not by popular vote.
And the activists are not happy with him. While Mormons and blacks were blamed for the failure of gay marriage in California, I'm seeing a fair amount of blame for Maine going to The One.
And the Freudian slip of the night goes to Evan Wolfson, director of a national gay "rights" group:
You know what's on his mind.
"It shows we have just not done it long enough and deep enough, even in a place like Maine.”
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1 comment:
Rick, you gave Evan more credit than most people would when you mentioned what was own his MIND! I don't think many of his type have any of that matter inside their cranium.
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