Referendum for Marriage Equality Filed in Maine

In Maine 105,000 signatures on petitions were filed requesting another vote on marriage equality. The group EqualityMaine gathered the signatures to place the measure before voters. A representative of the group, Betsy Smith, said that their polling indicates "a 54 percent majority" support the measure. In 2009 groups led by fundamentalist churches ran a campaign of misinformation to narrowly pass regulations denying gay couples the right to enter marriage contracts.

Rev. Bob Emrich, of the Emmanuel Bible Baptist Church, is promising to do the same again this year and is forming a coalition of fundamentalists Baptists and Catholics to try and and defeat equality of rights.

In the years since the last vote public polls have shown consistently growing support for marriage rights for gay couples. In March of last year Public Policy Polling found that 47% supported marriage equality and 45% opposed it. In November they found support had increased to 51% with 42% in opposition.

In recent weeks it has become clear that Washington state will pass marriage equality with all the votes needed in the legislature lined up. Maryland is on the cusp of doing so as well. The trend continues.

Will Maine Vote Again on Marriage Equality?

Advocates for marriage equality in Maine had 396 volunteers at the polls yesterday asking voters to sign petitions to put a referendum on the ballot to legalize gay marriage. In that one day some 36,000 signatures were gained for the pro-marriage side. The total number of signatures, on hand, now exceeds 100,000.

This means that another vote can be held next year to legalize marriage contracts for same-sex couples. Voters in Maine previously turned down the idea in a close election. Since then public opinion polls have shown voters shifting their stand on the issue. If the polls are correct a narrow victory is now possible.

But, what proponents have to remember is that the National Organization for (sic) Marriage is a "terrorist" organization that invents lies and distortions to literally scare voters. NOM has regularly produced dishonest advertisements to promote their bigoted agenda. In addition NOM acts as if it above the law. It is a political action committee yet it regularly refuses to report where it's funding is coming from, unlike every other PAC in the country. NOM has argued that they should be required to obey financial reporting laws because they are afraid—if you remember their "I am afraid" commercial you will realize NOM spends a lot of time wallowing in fear and inventing bogeymen to scare the public.

Below is that commercial. What is astounding is that almost every single line they use is a lie. It is astounding how many lies they can pack into one commercial to scare the bejesus out of people. It should be noted that when NOM's allies in California tried to defend Proposition 8 in court that they left out the claims that NOM makes in their advertisements? Under cross-examination their lies would be exposed easily and quickly. But in campaigns the only way to expose their lies is to outspend them massively trying to get accurate information to people. And, as long as their are bigots like John Templeton, Jr., willing to throw a $1 million into hate campaigns fighting their lies is difficult.

Maine Residents Reverse Course on Marriage Equality

Two years ago the National Organization for Marriage and other Religious Right groups mounted a scare campaign about marriage equality in order to convince voters in Maine to overturn a marriage equality law—before voters actually had a chance to see that no harm was inflicted because of it. The vote at the polls was 47% to keep marriage equality and 53% to strip gay people of the right enter legal marriage contracts.

Public Policy Polling revisited the issue in March of this year and their poll showed that 47% now supported marriage equality and 45% opposed it. Now they have released their newest polling results and find that 51% support marriage equality while 42% would oppose it.

But once again they have broken down support and opposition into more nuanced positions. When you include the supposed "separate but equal" position of civil unions support for legal recognition of gay couples jumps dramatically. In Maine only 17% of the residents say they oppose all legal recognition of gay relationship. Support for gay marriage and/or civil unions garners support from 82% of the residents—36% supporting civil unions, and 46% supporting full marriage rights.

A similar pattern in shifting views on the topic is seen over and over. Individuals had strong opposition to the issue. As the matter is discussed and debated the percentage of people supporting civil unions increases, as does the percentage supporting full marriage rights. At first the percentage supporting civil unions tends to be greater than the percentage supporting marriage. Individuals who support civil unions rather rapidly move over to supporting full marriage rights as opponents to equality shift their views to support civil unions.

As things are currently going "civil unions" is not the compromise position where the consensus will settle. It is a half-way house where the public pauses for a second breath before moving on to supporting marriage equality. In other words, all the evolution is going against the Christian Right—they have already lost this issue, it is now just waiting for the final results.

Documentary on the Maine Marriage Attack

Here is a documentary showing some of the lies of the fundamentalist fanatics that ran the campaign against marriage equality in Maine, including them saying that they had to scare people even if they weren't honest about it.

Religion should not be legislated and this is precisely what the religious fanatics in the United States demand: they insist that law reflect their theology. It is the American Taliban with their own version of sharia law.