State and Maine

[alexandraerin]

So, marriage equality lost in Maine last night.

This morning, I caught myself wasting time and energy reading commentary on rabid conservative blogs gloating about how the public voting down gay marriage has succeeded 31 out of 31 times while insisting it's not about equal rights or love but about silencing and persecuting Christians. It takes a remarkably self-centered and insular point of view to come up with something like the latter "point", obviously, but the first point might seem harder to refute. It keeps getting voted down... so why do people keep trying?

The gloating social conservatives are asking that right now. "When are they going to learn? When are they going to give up? When are they going to realize that America doesn't want them?"

Their triumphant (and triumphalist) rhetoric likely masks a very real fear. They are losing. Each year that life and business proceed as usual in the states that allow gay marriage, each year that even more families have their separate-but-less-equal partnerships in even more jurisdictions and the nuclear family erodes no faster or further because of it, each year that children go to schools that have openly gay students and teachers and are exposed to openly gay artists and characters, their position erodes.

The generational gap on marriage equality is likely to be a death knell for its opposition. It's not guaranteed to be... some generational gaps exist more because of how individuals' viewpoints change as they age, not because of a shift in society. But I find that unlikely to be the case here. The members of the older generation who oppose gay marriage now were probably not in favor of it when they were youngsters.

So, yeah, it sucks that a majority of voters in Maine voted to turn back the clock on social progress. It isn't and it can't be the final word. As with most anything else in this life, we only fail when we give up... until then we only haven't succeeded yet.

Comments

[waterdragon.livejournal.com]

I'm almost ready to disown Maine as my 'home' state. I wish I could vote there, but alas I am technically from Mass so I have to vote there (when I bother to take the time to do the absentee ballots which are more often than not useless since they're rarely counted.)

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

There's not much that I can say in response to this- I agree with you. Not so much on the fact that they're losing but on the fact that this is an inevitable tide. It's one that will continue to push forward. As much as they may not like it, gay marriage is not going to go away, no more than homosexuality is going to go away. People are going to keep wanting equal rights, and they're going to keep pushing for them. And inevitably it's going to just keep moving forward. They can keep plugging holes with their fingers, but the dam's going to give way eventually.

[calianissene.livejournal.com]

Those silly blacks are never going to get equal rights under the law. Why do they keep trying? It's ridiculous!

Those silly women are never going to get equal rights under the law. Why do they keep trying? It's ridiculous!

Those silly gays are never going to get equal rights under the law.....

[poppyash.livejournal.com]

I'm a rather small liberal blue dot in a sea of conservatism who possesses some rather intelligent (and realistic) conservative friends. Quoth one recently, "I don't like gay marriage. I also don't like Hannah Montana, but that doesn't make her illegal!"

No matter how many people complain, the fact is that this is a RIGHT that is being denied and so it WILL TRIUMPH. That is America, end of story.

[oniexpress.livejournal.com]

How do you think I feel *living* in Maine?

For most, it's not even a religious issue. It's a homophobic issue. There's a local closeted gay man (who works in the public eye with children) who had several "Yes on 1" flags on his lawn.

Un. Fucking. Believable.

For me, the worst part was the immediate statements by the politicers that their next move was going to be to push through a constitutional amendment to define marriage as specifically "one man and one woman". Not that these couldn't (and wouldn't) eventually get changed, but it's a deliberate move to make things harder down the line.

Ironic, for a state that makes a large portion of it's living (literally and tourist-y) through an Unholy Shellfish.

[phizzledout.livejournal.com]

This issue is being made too personal. One group of people proposed a change. The rest of the people voted on that change. The majority voted against that change. There are a million reasons someone may have for voting on any particular proposal. It's childish to assume everyone who votes one way is a free-thinking progressive and the other is a homophobic neanderthal. Especially since I'm sure everyone knows an idiotic monkey that agrees with you on some point or another and you kinda wished they didn't (I know I have friends like that).

[oniexpress.livejournal.com]

Technically, the state government approved a change in stride with new federal discrimination law (I found it highly ironic that new sexual orientation discrimination laws were signed in at the same time this was going on), and some people drummed up the support to veto that law. Yeah, some people are taking it personally. Because it *is* a personal matter to a lot of people.

But the simple fact remains that most of the folks in this state are homophobic, though not always in an intentional way. "They don't know any better".