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Loading ...Dejection fills Maine ballroom after marriage vote
11.04.2009 8:58am EST
(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.
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.
Portland resident Sarah Holman said she was torn, but decided – despite her conservative upbringing – to vote in favor of letting gays marry.
“They love and they have the right to love. And we can’t tell somebody how to love,” said Holman, 26.
While the gay marriage opponents claimed victory, Jesse Connolly, campaign manager for No on 1/Protect Maine Equality, held off conceding until early Wednesday, when he issued a statement vowing to continue to press the issue.
The fight for marriage equality will continue, he told supporters at the Holiday Inn ballroom, where a buffet table included a three-tiered wedding cake – with two grooms standing side by side, two brides standing side by side and the inscription: “We all do!”
“We’re not short-timers. We’re here for the long haul and whether it’s just all night and into the morning, or it’s next week or next month or next year. We will be here. We’ll be here fighting. We’ll be working. We will regroup.”
For Burnett and Swanson, the July 10 wedding date – and a reception cruise on Casco Bay – is off.
Fortunately, gay Mainers live very close to Canada – just move across the border to either Quebec or New Brunswick – where you can get married and be treated with full equality!!
Avis, you say you don’t get why she can’t see people are afraid of differences?
I DON’T SEE WHY TOO.
I’m not afraid of black people.
I’m not afraid of middle eastern people.
I’m not afraid of dumb people
I’m not afraid of straight people.
Ok, maybe of criminals when I’m walking in dark late at night.
Seriously, where do these fears come from? I was never taught them. I don’t think we should be saying people have fears and that is rational.
They are irrational fears and i guarantee without religion, they would not exist.
People are taught this, and the teachers are the cultists.
Kill religion. Its our only hope.
Our problem is we try to be resonable and nice in our bid for equality. Time to take off the gloves and get every bit as nasty and underhanded as the opposition. If I have to fight dirty, then so be it.
So sorry to hear about Maine! And yours.
Please come to CT to wed. I officiated for couples who came here to wed this summer from all across the country.
Cheers, Joe Mustich,
Justice of the Peace,
Washington, Connecticut, USA
11/12/09 is on the one year anniversary of marriage equality in CT.
I was an avid, activist, financial contributor to the same-sex marriage cause. Maine has changed my mind. Idealistically, it might be the right cause. And same-sex marriage will eventually be the law of the land. But state-by-state is the wrong strategy at the wrong time.
(1) We’re psychologically battering our community. Thirty-one (!) gay marriage ballot measures have gone against us. Forget about Arizona – there are same-sex couples in relatively progressive states who were set up to get their hopes up, only to have it all yanked away from them. In some cases, even previously-enacted domestic partnership laws were left in question by marriage ballot beheadings. We must stop setting people up to be devastated!
(2) We spend hundreds of millions of dollars to defend marriage rights passed in court or legislature in progressive states, while same-sex couples in Alabama, Mississippi, or Idaho, have absolutely no protections for their relationships. That money could be better spent procuring domestic partnership rights for people in more conservative areas. Polling shows that most Americans, even in conservative places, support domestic partnership protections.
(3) In places where there are no protections for same-sex relationships, the poor, women, and people of color are disproportionately affected. Rich and middle-class gays can afford the lawyers to craft the legally-sound wills and directives that ensure that one partner will make medical decisions for the other, or that either will have inheritance rights, or that their joint raising of a child will not be invalidated in courts. I know, because I hired a lawyer and did a will protecting my partner and me; and I recently left a southern state where not doing so would have been begging for trouble. Low-income gays can’t do this. So a same-sex couple in Selma, North Carolina, who have no DP protections and no money, is left to the dogs. To the extent that a greater percentage of lesbian couples, or same-sex households of color, are lower-income than their white gay male counterparts, having no rights at all is far more damaging to them. This isn’t to say that denial of marriage isn’t damaging to everyone, even to middle-class or rich gays, but it does say that not having even domestic partnership rights is absolutely devastating to same-sex couples. California and Maine both had domestic partnership protections before their marriage initiatives. Same-sex couples in many areas of Utah or Louisiana have nothing.
(4) It has become clear that a far more likely scenario than winning gay marriage state-by-state, is winning domestic partnerships on a federal, national level. The Obama administration, as well as the Congress and Senate, are poised to do it. For me (and my conscience, and my money) giving same-sex couples in Tennessee even basic legal recognition of their relationships is far more valuable than upgrading a couple’s status in Maine from domestic partnership to marriage.
(5) Getting national domestic partnership rights for couples might increase the numbers of straights who “get it” that gay couples deserve equal rights.
(6) Putting gay marriage on a state ballot makes our gay brothers and sisters in that state wonder who voted against them. Was it family? Neighbors? Friends? This isn’t bringing people together. This is causing suspicion, bitterness, and hurt. Bringing people together is probably the only way we’re going to eventually convince straights that we deserve equality under the law. Telling our personal stories works much better than forcing people to make choices along philosophical lines.
(7) Continuing the same-sex marriage “smack-down” is just emboldening our bigoted foes who will now think they can use their inhumane, despicable tactics in the remaining 19 states in the union.
(8) It took some 160 years between the first state striking down interracial marriage bans, to the Virginia v. Loving 1967 Supreme court decision striking down all such bans. Gay marriage is inevitable – and certainly in much less time than 160 years. But there has to be a more intelligent strategy than battering people psychologically in progressive states while denying people much needed resources and protection in conservative states.
It sucks bad my cuz was set to marry his LONG TERM lover but had to postpone due to job lose & now it will only be longer having to go further to marry. I hope all those who have money for vacation to BOYCOT there business’s. The CASH VOTE is heard better then a ballot!
I cannot for the life of me make heads or tails of why Cecilia Burnett cannot understand that people are afraid of situations, persons of a different race and/or gender persuasion, than they themselves happen to be; that change is never easy and can often bring about doubt, anger, and frustration? Sure, you and other Maine citizens are hurt and saddened over this recent vote, but it’s not the end of the world; you’ll have the opportunity to revisit this situation again sooner than you think!
/ams
“but all did so through legislation or court rulings, not by popular vote”
They include this as if it means LGBTs don’t deserve rights. What other minority groups won their rights by popular vote?
It makes me angry that ANY couple has to experience this. Cecelia Burnett is right–it does feel like a personal rejection. When your equality is put to a vote and it loses, it generally does feel like a personal rejection. There is no excuse for this happening in this country, especially given the history of the civil rights movement. Some of the women who voted against gays should remember something–the only reason women can vote today is because 36 state legislatures said it was OK. It was never put to a national vote.
kingstonbears…the comment about being sold a bill of goods by the Dems…you wanna turn this into a partisan contest, you can produce fuck-all of anything pro-gay done by the GOP, so don’t take the conversation to that. Is it time for the Dems to stop being cowards and resolve this? Yes–but let’s be clear, if Obama does push the Dem caucus for repeal of DOMA and DADT, it will pass only because of the Dems. I don’t see the GOP doing ANYTHING in that direction, so right now it’s the difference between my cock getting polished with a bar of Basis, versus my cock getting polished with 36-grit sandpaper. Don’t shine me on and try to convince me that either one is good, but sure as fuck don’t try to convince me that sand is smoother than soap.
This is about US. All of US. We’re stuck with one political party as our pseudo-ally, and we’re supposed to do some demeaning Steppin Fetchit dance to “earn” our rights. If Obama doesn’t step up in the next few months, chances are very good that this will take several more years. I’m sick of his waffling, I’m sick of the Dems’ self-absorption, and I’m especially sick of anyone who wants to come on here and suggest that the Dems even come close to being as much of an obstacle as the GOP. What the fuck is it when American citizens are expected to grovel for their Constitutional rights IN OUR OWN FUCKING COUNTRY???
Well, we now have yet another tourist destination where we won’t be spending any of our tourist dollars. And believe me, money talks!! At the rate things are going pretty soon we’ll have to spend all our money here in Canada. But then we do have to remember the “bill of goods” all of you got sold last year by the Dems.
Boycotting anything and everything American that I possibly can. There is so much outsourcing it shouldn’t be too hard to manage. If it says “made in china/Taiwan/Korea/India”, I’m on it like white on rice.
Not one red cent will go towards products, tourism, or other people in this country if I can help it. I want to be of as little help to this country as I possibly can.
Just keep making money and stashing it away. Its for the better for one’s self anyway.
To Cecelia & Ann: I’m saddened by your grief, but no matter what the vote, I’m glad you still have each other.
(And remember, NH & VT are only a stone’s throw away…)
It is personal!