The issue is not Blacks, Mormons, and Catholics–it is that the majority should not be allowed to vote to take away the rights of the minority.

We have to live with Blacks, Mormons, and Catholics–and may gays are also Black, Mormon, and/or Catholic.

White people in the South didn’t want Black kids going to the same schools as their kids. But then, we had a FEDERAL desegregation of schools and they had no choice in the matter. They were never allowed to vote to reverse the granting and or protection of rights.

Since Maine has a “People’s Veto” and is a predominately white state, how about we go and collect enough signatures to hold a vote on the right of Black people and Jews to vote? We should do this in California as well. Also, we should put it on the ballot as a constitutional amendment in Alabama and Georgia. Imagine the outrage over doing such a thing. But also look at the number of people who would vote in favor of doing such a thing.

In the late 2002, the State of Alabama finally got around to having a vote to amend its constitution to officially allow inter-racial marriage–the LAST state to do so. However, 40% of the voters REJECTED interracial marriage. This was in 2002–the 21st century. Now we can (correctly) say that so many people in Alabama are ass-backwards. However, look at the large concentration of Alabama WHITES who voted AGAINST interracial marriage.

You are EXACTLY correct!! Hillary Clinton did not raise expectations into the stratosphere. She said that you can’t just go into Washington and change things overnight–that there is a system. It might be a system we don’t like, but it’s there, nonetheless.

Candidate Obama raised expectations across the board: on jobs, healthcare, the economy, gay rights, race relations–the list goes on. People bought into that–believe that one man alone could simply change everything. There’s a name for that–it’s called a dictatorship!

We as a community need to get our hopes off Obama and start doing the heavy lifting on out own. Look at the Black civil rights movement. It’s successes were owed to the work of ordinary people protesting, getting arrested, beaten, and unfortunately, dying for their rights. We have to get out of our comfort zone and make the necessary sacrifices.

Take a listen to the song “Cult of Personality” by Living Colour. It fits Obama perfectly.

Heh. I wonder… if Maine had gone for gay marriage yesterday, would the battle be over today? Not by a longshot…

This is very offensive.

I’m sad and angry, too. I don’t know James, but I’d bet he’s sad and angry, too.

The trick is to get yourself to a place where you can say, do the right thing *despite* feelings of anger and sadness. If you can do that, it actually tempers the negative feelings and makes them more manageable. James is actually modeling very good emotional self care in times of duress. (FWIW, I’m a clinicial social worker, and I work as a life coach helping people with emotion-management skills. James is skilled.)

I think I could comprehend this sentiment a bit if he was out campaigning for other referendum issues. It’s not like he gave lots of effort to other causes and ignored us.

One of the reasons why we got sudden traction in the courts around marriage equality is because a large number of us moved out to the burbs, adopted kids, and started behaving equally like “husbands” and “wifes” with very familiar-looking “families.” After a decade of that movement building on its own, the courts took notice and said, “Gee, they look like everyone else. Why are you denying them rights?!”

My point is that we need to live our lives as openly loving, proud families who live, work, and play everywhere. If we continue to act like we’re married, then the sentiment in the straight communities and in political circles will follow. We see this in the polling of young people…they’ve grown up seeing the more open LGBT families of the eighties and nineties, and their understanding, tolerance, and acceptance are reflected in how they poll.

We’re going to get a limited-to-employment anti-discrimination policy passed in Congress this year, which will be 26 years after the first state passed its anti-discrimination law for gay people (go Wisconsin!). If we overturn DADT within the next few years, it will 17 years in the making. Getting to argue Bowers v Hardwick (sodomy laws) took years, and then it took 17 years to overturn that bad decision in Lawrence v Texas. Geez…it took 100 years to get rid of American apartheid after slavery ended.

Marriage equality is not yet a decade old. It wasn’t on any of our radar screens in 2000/2001 (other than the plaintiffs of the Goodrich case, maybe).

It takes time and effort. But I share your concern about the people who think that no change within one election cycle is “outrageous!” Historically speaking, not it’s not. Sorry.