Gay Marriage Repealed in Maine!

[amicus]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/maine-voters-repeal-gay-marriage-law/article1350447/

Glenn Adams and David Crary
Portland, Maine — Associated Press Published on Wednesday, Nov. 04, 2009 1:04AM EST Last updated on Wednesday, Nov. 04, 2009 1:33AM EST

Maine voters repealed a state law Tuesday that would have allowed same-sex couples to wed, dealing the U.S. gay rights movement a heartbreaking defeat in New England, the corner of the country most supportive of gay marriage.

Gay marriage has now lost in every single state – 31 in all – in which it has been put to a popular vote.

~~~

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

AMICUS

This cant be! The Usual Suspects assured me same-sex marriage is unstoppable and what every American wants more than life!

 

[amicus]

Yeah, I know, James, I just fabricated the news item, thought it up all by my little self, manufactured the data, misquoted the facts, did faulty research, cherry picked sources...did I miss anything?



ami

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

No doubt you'll be blamed for the defeat when the Usual Suspects report in.

 

[Carnevil9]

I still don't get it. Gays want to get married? They want to serve in the military? WTF is wrong with these people?

These are the things I spend my energy trying to avoid. Yet they seek them? They fight for them? These people are missing out on the best parts of being gay in the first place!......Carney

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

They dont want them either, they want the law to ordain them 'okay' and 'normal.'

 

[Carnevil9]

They dont want them either, they want the law to ordain them 'okay' and 'normal.'

You're probably right. Dumbasses. When you've got a good thing, enjoy it! Don't try to wave your hands and make it go away. Sheesh.

 

[Huckleman2000]

Closet cases. :caning:

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

You're probably right. Dumbasses. When you've got a good thing, enjoy it! Don't try to wave your hands and make it go away. Sheesh.

The one's who get married seem to get divorced pretty quickly. A few of them wandered down here to get divorced, cant, and are raising hell. I suspect theyre professional hell raisers.

 

[amicus]

To be serious, for a moment, as I usually am, and JBJ, you might help me out with this one, considering your professional experience...

I just finished writing a long letter to a distant daughter who is alone and wondering why. She is smart, intelligent, pretty, attractive, sense of humor and very lonely and asked me why.

I have mentioned a poetry site where many young writer's post their works and in their profile many list as, 'Bi' or even "Gay', as their sexual preference. This could have many causes, the, 'in' thing to be as a teenager, like Goth was or a penchant for Vampire stories, but I suspect it is something much more involved.

I can understand the need for companionship and I have accessed the nature of prison life and understand the same sex necessity of isolation from the opposite sex.

I can understand devastated areas, like Occupied Europe after World War Two and the loss of family and an entire way of life that vectored into an aura of hopelessness and loss of innocence.

I can also attempt to understand the psychological committment to same sex relationships that so many seem to aspire to and advocate.

I feel no sense of elation or gloating at the results of the Maine election, but rather a sadness for those so deeply invested in that lifestyle and I understand the devastation that many must experience upon reading the outcome.

Even my usual stance of insisting that the changing times, the liberation of women, the quest for equality, has severely damaged normative gender concepts to a point where men and women are alienated from each other and turn to same sex relationships to alleviate the loneliness.

If it is truly a genetic circumstance, I can hardly accept the cruelty of nature and evolution that would determine that so very many were destined to exist outside the normative.

Rationality continues to drive my thoughts; that the social revolution of feminism, the fervent quest for equality, has upset the gender balance and that societies everywhere must find a way to deal with this very basic change or attempt to change the very nature of male/female relationships.

It is fully into the political arena and must be resolved, but how? One might compare the movement as similar to the demise of formal religion in terms of providing a moral basis upon which people base their actions and lives. Nothing emerged to replace faith and I see nothing emerging to resolve the societal changes that have brought homosexuality into center stage.

James...perhaps you would address this...as it exists in the schools, on college campus's and in real life and in the courts and social aspects of the State?

Amicus

 

[Epmd607]

Every poll on gay marriage shows a simple majority against it, often a 3 or 4% difference. It's inevitable that simple majority will close, but it's irrelevant because the courts will ultimately decide civil rights issues, like they always do. So pat yourselves on the back, you're winners, the gays are losers, good job on all your hard work on this message board.


http://www.pollingreport.com/civil.htm

 

[Epmd607]

"With 87 per cent of the precincts reporting, gay-marriage foes had 53 per cent of the votes."

How is 53 percent of the vote a declaration against gay marriage and a victory dance?

1. We don't live in a democracy, so simple majority is usually irrelevant.

2. What was the last civil rights issue put to a vote?

3. Who usually ends up deciding the rightness and wrongness of legislation? The people?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

AMICUS

Thre fault is not in our stars, Brutus, the fault is in ourselves.

The local paper is pissed because 25% of local blacks graduate high school after 40 years of desegregation. The paper blames the school board and demands that the school board take responsibility for the problem. Blacks and whites attend the same schools, share the same books and teachers, and 75% of whites graduate.

Lack of personal responsibility for outcomes is the problem. The world is certainly unfair, life is unfair, and even God is unfair, but if youre unhappy with what you get you need to take action to change the outcome.

Psychiatrist Eric Berne called the Usual Suspect strategy, WAITING FOR SANTA CLAUS TO COME.

 

[KarennaC]

I lived in Maine from birth until June of this year, and I've watched this question come up over and over again. Had I still lived there, the presence of question 1 on the ballot would have stirred me out of my typical apolitical beliefs and gotten my ass to the polls to vote an emphatic NO on this question. (No meaning "don't repeal the law".)

I just checked the election results on the website of one of the Portland, Maine TV stations, and was appalled at the gloating and rejoicing by those who voted "Yes". I had to stop reading the comments because they made me so angry. Some of the people commenting apparently not only didn't think homosexuals should be allowed to marry, they don't even consider homosexuals to be human. [/rant]

For those who say "marriage is between a man and a woman", my only comment is that if their religion considers it that way, that's fine, but it's a matter of religious doctrine and not everyone believes the same thing. For those who say that gay marriage would destroy families: I grew up in a household where I constantly prayed that either my parents would divorce or one of them would die. The verbal and emotional abuse between them and from them toward me was intolerable. My one sanctuary was the home of some family friends in another state. My "uncles", three gay men living in a committed triad, treated me with love and respect each time I visited them, and taught me what little I managed to learn about having a healthy, committed relationship. I sure didn't learn anything about healthy relationships from my heterosexual parents.

That is definitely not to say that all heterosexual couples are disfunctional; nor is it to say that all gay couples (or more-ples) have healthy relationships. It is to say that the gender and sexual orientation of the people in a relationship has NOTHING to do with how strong or healthy the relationship is. This is, of course, just my opinion, but it's based on personal experience.

I live in Massachusetts now with my fiance. (If anyone's wondering, we're a heterosexual couple and have a very healthy relationship. My first marriage brought a whole new meaning to "unhealthy".) Here, homosexuals are allowed to marry. Admittedly I haven't lived here long, but so far I haven't seen anything to indicate that allowing homosexuals to legally marry has destroyed anything whatsoever.

My fiance and I discussed this last night, and he suggested that maybe "marriage" needs to remain a religious term, and the government should come up with something else to define a relationship between two people who want a legal commitment to each other, regardless of their gender. A legal relationship that would allow them to make medical decisions for each other; to have equal say in the lives of any children within that household; to sign up under each other's health benefits; to receive the tax breaks offered to married couples. (Even in supposedly enlightened Massachusetts, my fiance wasn't allowed to include my children and me on his health insurance plan because he didn't have a legal relationship to any of us.) Call it "domestic partnership", as I believe some states already do; call it "householding"; call it whatever you like, but I believe that any people who want to have a legal, committed relationship with each other and have access to the benefits offered to those who choose to live under the traditional definition of "marriage", should have that right.

"Marriage", from what I can tell, seems to be a religious construct, and yet the government here, by and large, seems to accept that construct. What happened to separation of church and state?

*Sits back and waits for backlash; I've said my piece and refuse to argue or name-call.*

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The polity in a democracy has the right to decide what goes. End of discussion.

If you dont like the outcome you go to work to change hearts & minds. What have you got to trade for my same-sex marriage support?

The whole issue is a red herring because Power of Attorney already exists, Legal Guardships exist, and plenty of people own property conjointly.

What gays want is ordained normalcy, and thats not gonna happen. If your pols have to choose between unemployment and throwing you off the train, you lose.

 

[Epmd607]

The polity in a democracy has the right to decide what goes. End of discussion.

If you dont like the outcome you go to work to change hearts & minds. What have you got to trade for my same-sex marriage support?

The whole issue is a red herring because Power of Attorney already exists, Legal Guardships exist, and plenty of people own property conjointly.

What gays want is ordained normalcy, and thats not gonna happen. If your pols have to choose between unemployment and throwing you off the train, you lose.

The polity in a democratic-republic doesn't have the right to decide what goes on -- we've a right to decide on the representative that decides on what goes on. We've never lived in a democracy. Our representatives are meant to decide on what's best for our society, public opinion is of little importance, you federalist/constitutionalist babies should know all that.

 

[Epmd607]

The majority of people don't elect representatives based on their stance on gay marriage. The majority voting against gay marriage(the majority by a transient few percent) are a majority that doesn't decide on a representative based on one marginal issue. During elections gay marriage becomes a marginal issue, even if it's in the papers daily, it's just not important enough to most people's lives.

 

[Boota]

No bigger deal this time than any of the others, this back and forth. Gay marriage will keep losing until it wins. And it will eventually win and won't even be an issue anymore. Homophobes prepare - it is going to happen. And probably sooner than later. It won't be all that long before people look back on the gay marriage battle they fought so hard against and can't fathom what was such a big deal.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

No bigger deal this time than any of the others, this back and forth. Gay marriage will keep losing until it wins. And it will eventually win and won't even be an issue anymore. Homophobes prepare - it is going to happen. And probably sooner than later. It won't be all that long before people look back on the gay marriage battle they fought so hard against and can't fathom what was such a big deal.

Your NO BIG DEAL got its ass kicked last night.

 

[JamesSD]

I'll eat crow and admit I expected Gay Marriage to prevail in Maine, albeit by a slim margin. These results, coupled with those of Washington state where civil unions were expanded to the point they are now marriage without the name, seem to show that the US populace is still not willing to accept Gay Marriage, by a modest margin.

I'll be interested to see if age demographics come out, but I would imagine they'd fall in line with National polls, where those under 40 support gay marriage and those over 40 (especially over 65) oppose it. The elderly voters of this country are doing a good job of preventing Gay Marriage within their lifetimes, but as I've stated before, that's about as long as these bans will hold up for the most part.

The big question for Gay rights supporters is this: Should the push for gay marriage continue in the short run, or should resources and efforts be focused on getting separate-but-equal civil unions everywhere? There is a sizable bloc of moderate voters who are happy to extend every legal privilege that comes with marriage to homosexuals as long as they can keep the word "marriage" for a man and a woman. There are states where homosexuals lack any legal recognition. A strong national push for civil unions would likely reap long term benefits and be able to pick up a lot of strong support from national political figures who could join up without risking their political careers.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I suspect that America is over Obama and the Democrats for a while. We tried black now we wanna go back. I also suspect that any group or issue tied to Obama is gonna take it up the ass til Obama and the Usual Suspects get their minds right about the economy. He shoved his dick in America's face and America bit the head off yesterday.

 

[Boota]

Your NO BIG DEAL got its ass kicked last night.

It is no big deal to me. Gays, homophobes and closeted homophobes are the only ones with a dog in this fight. It's just an injustice that will fall in time.

 

[Huckleman2000]

I'll eat crow and admit I expected Gay Marriage to prevail in Maine, albeit by a slim margin. These results, coupled with those of Washington state where civil unions were expanded to the point they are now marriage without the name, seem to show that the US populace is still not willing to accept Gay Marriage, by a modest margin.

I'll be interested to see if age demographics come out, but I would imagine they'd fall in line with National polls, where those under 40 support gay marriage and those over 40 (especially over 65) oppose it. The elderly voters of this country are doing a good job of preventing Gay Marriage within their lifetimes, but as I've stated before, that's about as long as these bans will hold up for the most part.

The big question for Gay rights supporters is this: Should the push for gay marriage continue in the short run, or should resources and efforts be focused on getting separate-but-equal civil unions everywhere? There is a sizable bloc of moderate voters who are happy to extend every legal privilege that comes with marriage to homosexuals as long as they can keep the word "marriage" for a man and a woman. There are states where homosexuals lack any legal recognition. A strong national push for civil unions would likely reap long term benefits and be able to pick up a lot of strong support from national political figures who could join up without risking their political careers.

I don't know. Why should a civil rights issue require a compromise? Why should there be a silly differentiation in nomenclature between one group of citizens and another, if the state truly has no role in legislating religious belief?

 

[Epmd607]

I suspect that America is over Obama and the Democrats for a while. We tried black now we wanna go back. I also suspect that any group or issue tied to Obama is gonna take it up the ass til Obama and the Usual Suspects get their minds right about the economy. He shoved his dick in America's face and America bit the head off yesterday.

Democrats still control the house and senate. You're claiming last night as a victory, James? If the gay vote was 80 to 20 against marriage and the senate and house moved toward republican control...oh wait, what happened was a few governorships moved red and a 53% vote was held against gay marriage, seems like you and your ilk are still bent over in front of O. Anyway, gay marriage isn't an Obama policy, he hasn't done anything to support it.

 

[WRJames]

AMICUS

This cant be! The Usual Suspects assured me same-sex marriage is unstoppable and what every American wants more than life!

Some changes literally come over dead bodies. We'll get there eventually, but you may never know about it.