But, wait! There are more bills in the air: Michigan has one seeking to repeal its constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and New Hampshire has one seeking to repeal its newly approved-but-not-yet-enacted marriage equality law.

And, of course, there is still Maine, a dropped ball.

Ever since last Tuesday, when voters in Maine voted to repeal the state’s newly approved-but-not-yet-enacted marriage equality law, opponents of same-sex marriage have touted the vote as a decisive renunciation of equal rights for gay couples.

They claim Maine was a “liberal New England state” where they were “grossly outspent.” Supporters of equal rights, who did eventually concede the defeat, the struggle is “about love and family and that will always be something worth fighting for.”

Both sides of the same-sex marriage issue have re-positioned their resources from Maine to these five other states.

New York

In New York State on Tuesday, the Senate was slated to take up a marriage equality bill. The bill  already passed the state Assembly, but the volatile Senate –where Democrats cling to a 32 to 30 majority—has been reluctant to take it up.

That reluctance continued: The Senate did not take up the bill Tuesday. Instead, Senate leaders huddled with Gov. David Paterson and, according to the New York Times, came up with yet another “vague agreement” to vote on the bill “before the end of the year.”

That may be as soon as Monday of next week, but many observers say they doubt the Senate will put the bill on the floor unless the Democratic leadership knows the bill has 32 votes.  Two Democrats have already said they would not vote for the measure, and the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage sent out a statement this week, saying it would “build a $500,000 war chest to fund a primary challenge to any Republican senator who votes for gay marriage –regardless of the outcome” of the Senate vote.

Washington, D.C.

 Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., counting votes is not an issue. A D.C. council committee voted 4 to 1 on Tuesday to approve a marriage equality bill there. The full Council will vote on Dec. 1; 10 of the 13 Councilmembers are sponsors of the legislation.

But inevitability is not translating into a smooth victory. The Council Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary heard more than 160 witnesses over two days of hearings testify for and against a bill that will provide for gay couples to be able to obtain marriage licenses. Simultaneously, the D.C. elections board heard testimony for and against a proposal to let D.C. voters decide by initiative whether to ban same-sex marriage.

Wait! Wasn’t it just last month that the elections board said there could be no ballot battle over same-sex marriage? Yes, but that was only in regard to D.C.’s just recently passed law recognizing marriage licenses same-sex couples obtain elsewhere, like in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, or Iowa. (New Hampshire’s law doesn’t go into effect until Jan. 1.)

Now, opponents are before the elections board seeking an initiative to establish a statute limiting the definition of marriage to straight couples. The board is expected to rule on that request in the next two weeks, says Human Rights Campaign regional field director Sultan Shakir.  Those opponents are being aided by the aid of the National Organization of Marriage and have the legal aid of another staunch conservative anti-gay group, the Alliance Defense Fund.

Perhaps trying to head off some of the controversy, the Council Committee on Tuesday agreed to amend the marriage equality bill by giving religious institutions more leeway to discriminate against same-sex couples. The original bill allowed religious institutions to refuse to accommodate same-sex weddings through such services as rental of space as long as they did not accommodate straight couples.

 But the Committee agreed to allow religious institutions to refuse only gay couples in spaces owned by the institution. One committee member tried to expand that even further to non-religious institutions, but the Committee said no.

The Committee also amended the legislation to continue providing a domestic partnership option for both straight and gay couples.

 New Jersey

Gay marriage supporters are considering a hurried run at the New Jersey legislature –a hurry necessitated by the defeat of incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine (D) in the Nov. 3 election. Corzine has said he would support of equal rights for gay couples, but his successor, Chris Christie (R), has promised to veto any such legislation.

 The New Jersey legislature passed a civil unions law after the state supreme court ruled that the state constitution required gay couples be able to obtain the same benefits of marriage as straight couples can obtain. Momentum has been growing, however, for full marriage equality.

But New Jersey is also the original home-base for the National Organization for Marriage and that group is already playing its “save the children” radio ads warning that allowing gay couples to marry will lead to homosexuality being “forced” on school children.

The Star-Ledger in Newark reported that NOM funded robo-calls to “every household in selected legislative districts” and that the Catholic church has been distributing letters statewide to rally opposition to any marriage equality bill.

Like New York, passage of a marriage equality bill in New Jersey will require some Republican votes.

Oregon, Michigan, New Hampshire

Meanwhile, efforts are underway in a couple of states to untie the constitutional binds that currently prevent states from treating same-sex couples the same as straight couples when it comes to marriage licensing.

In Oregon, the statewide gay group Basic Rights Oregon announced last week that it is launching a petition drive to put on the ballot in 2012 an initiative to repeal the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage there. Voters approved the ban by initiative in 2004, but in 2007, the state legislature approved a law to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and another law to allow same-sex couples to register as domestic partners.

In Michigan, the House speaker pro tem, State Rep. Pam Byrnes, made good on a promise she announced in June: She introduced a measure seeking repeal of the constitutional ban approved by voters there in 2004. If the bill receives two-thirds approval in the House and Senate, it will then go to voters in 2010.

But in New Hampshire, there is an attempt to repeal a marriage equality law approved earlier this year. The law is set to go into effect Jan. 1.

The idea for the bill emerged long before the vote in Maine, but the conservative Union Leader newspaper got the ball rolling last week with a blistering editorial, claiming that the repeal vote in Maine jostles the neighboring domino.

The paper said at least two bills are already being drafted to undo the marriage equality law –one by legislative repeal, one by voter repeal.

Openly gay State Rep. Jim Splaine, who sponsored the marriage equality bill earlier this year, said he expects opponents to file the repeal bill in January. Because the marriage equality bill passed on very close votes last spring, said Splaine, “we shouldn’t take anything for granted.”

© 2009 Keen News Service

I react to events that way.

I take them personally, and I react personally.

A celebrity offends LGBTs, I want to stay away from her movies or tune out his music.

A politician votes against LGBTs, I want to vote against him or her.

A church disparages LGBTs, I want to tally up all the injustices, crimes and offenses committed by the church.

The majority of a state votes for institutional discrimination against LGBTs, I want to return the pain.

Maine voters on Nov. 3 cast ballots to repeal a gay-marriage bill signed into law in May by Democratic Gov. John Baldacci.

There was a lot of money from both sides pumped into the election. There were a lot of television ads. There was a lot of knocking on doors and dialing phones. There was a lot of commitment to the campaigns inside and Maine and outside Maine.

And there was a lot at stake.

If voters had upheld the law, it would have been the first time a state’s voters endorsed marriage for same-sex couples.

Instead, voters delivered another first — the first time an electorate overturned a gay-marriage law enacted by state lawmakers.

Now I’m boiling over Maine.

Where to direct the anger?

Not at legislators, who voted for marital rights for same-sex couples.

Not at the governor, who signed the bill for marital rights for same-sex couples.

Not at the coalition of national, state and local LGBT groups that raised money and rallied volunteers.

Not at Maine’s newspapers, which in editorials urged voters to defeat the anti-gay initiative.

The anger is directed at the religious institutions — specifically the Catholic Church — and the right-wing organizations — specifically the National Organization for Marriage — that fueled the anti-gay drive.

And the anger is directed at the voters who gobbled up the lies and hate like candy — or, like dope.

Yes, considering the relationships between NOM and the voter, the church and the voter, I’m reminded of the drug dealer and the user — one pushes dope, one gets doped and we suffer, society suffers.

People cling to lies about LGBT people because they confirm pre-existing beliefs. They seek out information to support their beliefs, and oh, yes, they do feed on the false information when it is pushed on them.

A study by researchers at the University of Buffalo examined why voters clung so to the belief that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the terrorist attacks on the United States in Sept. 11, 2001, even after evidence proved otherwise.

The researchers, in a paper in Sociological Inquiry, argued that people continued to believe in a connection because of their pre-existing beliefs about the Bush administration. Believers in the president and his administration sought justification for the decision to go to war and held to the false belief.

The researchers explained this as “inferred justification,” a phenomenon in which someone has a belief and finds information — regardless of its accuracy — to support the belief.

The researchers also cited the theory of cognitive dissonance, which explains that information that contradicts a pre-existing belief prompts a defense — the information is ignored as if it doesn’t exist or the information motivates a person to discredit the source.

So, remembering Maine, how do we go forward?

We’ve already declared war on the anti-gay pushers and, just like the war on drugs, it’s a costly battle.

What we’ve got to do more effectively is break the cycle of addiction to lies and hate, prejudice and misinformation among those who don’t realize they’ve got a problem, among those who, when their pre-existing belief is challenged, score some more dope.

Augusta police say the voicemail threat targeted Michael Heath, former leader of the Christian Civic League of Maine and its successor, the Maine Family Policy Council. The person who left the voicemail said, “I can tell him this. I’m a gay guy who owns guns, and he’s my next target.”

The incident isn’t the only backlash following voters’ decision to scuttle Maine’s gay marriage law.

On Sunday, same-sex marriage supporters protested outside the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland. WGME-TV says protesters taped their mouths shut in the silent protest. Bishop Richard Malone had urged Catholics to rejected gay marriage.

___

I just watched the video you made concerning the victory of anti-marriage equality advocates in Maine.

And though we’ve never met (a product, no doubt, of some great cosmic alignment of the stars in the universe — one that I consider myself grateful for every single day), I feel as though I know you. So I felt compelled to write to you this morning, in the hopes we might better understand each other.

In your video, you say we are stunned and hurt and upset over the loss in Maine. You’re right, Maggie. We are. We’re stunned that the “Yes on 1″ campaign used the same revolting, slanderous messages that have been used against us for years — that we’re child predators, that our marriages would rob people of religious freedom, that all we want is to indoctrinate children into the big scary horror that is Homosexuality. We’re hurt that people still believe all that nonsense, that decent, intelligent Americans still fall prey to such blatant fear-mongering from people who can’t use actual arguments against ours. And we’re very upset, Maggie. We’re upset that for the second time in a very short time, strangers have been given the power to decide how the law treats other people, and strangers have decided for gay men and women whether or not they can keep the right to codify and protect their relationship.

See, Mags (can I call you Mags? Come on, I mean it with affection. I nickname all my friends, and we’re friends, aren’t we?), I watched your video, and I realized you have absolutely no idea what we’re stunned, hurt or upset about. And if we’re going to be pals, I think you should at least take the time to know something real about me. So, lend me your ear, Mags, because I want to let you in on the secret you’re missing, the little piece of the puzzle you haven’t fully figured out yet.

With a little devilish twinkle in your eye (and don’t think I didn’t see it there, because I did! I so did! The mediocre webcam lighting didn’t fool me for a second!), I saw you talk about our loss with a barely repressed glee — we lost and you guys won! — and every time you mentioned us you called us “advocates” or some other impersonal nomenclature, and all of a sudden, I got it. I got you, Mags. Finally. After such a long time of not getting you.

This fight — You think it’s all about ballot boxes and campaigns and videos and votes and which states you win and which ones you lose and what commercials can we run on which stations and what do the polls say and how can we beat them, how can we win?

For us, it’s not about that at all. For us… it’s our lives, Mags.

Fess up, Mags. You can tell me the truth. Because I’m not going to tell anyone (seriously, nobody reads this, don’t worry): It’s a game to you, right? Because that’s easy, right? It’s easier just to create these cartoon versions of actual cultural moments because to actually deal with what’s happening and with real people’s lives would be complicated and harder to spin? It’s just a way to cast people in roles that make them feel good about themselves (you know, you’re the little guy standing up against the big bad monolith and if we all just stick together — and donate some funds to the cause — we’re gonna bring that big bad monolith down! Right? I’m right. Come on, Mags. You can tell me.)

Mags, I have to share this with you, because I feel we’ve become close: you remind me of someone. Well, a bunch of someones actually.

We have these women all across Lafayette (I’m in Lafayette, Louisiana, nice little city in south Louisiana, you should stop by!), these women who have wealthy husbands and really terrific houses (in River Ranch, it’s our planned community, kind of creepy if you ask me) and they have very little to do with their time other than wait in their really terrific houses for their wealthy husbands to come home in the evenings, so their days are filled with the pursuit of Meaning — not little old regular meaning, but Capital M Meaning, the kind that transforms a life from a collection of connected days to a living, breathing agent of change in the world.

They look for Meaning everywhere — in every club, gathering, organization they can think of (because nothing says Meaning like being in a room with other people looking for Meaning as well, right? Meaning by association! Awesome!) — and when they find a message they can wrap their mind around, they grab onto it with a vice grip and wrestle it to the ground, they take that message and tuck it into the deepest part of who they are and they repeat it and shout it until the message takes root there and becomes less of a message and more of an identity, a signpost of worth, a foundation upon which Meaning can be built.

They don’t have to believe the message. It doesn’t matter if it’s true to them or true in any sense of the word. It just has to work with others. Because when your Meaning is wrapped up in a message, the only way to sustain it is for others to agree with you.

You remind me of those women, Mags. All this shrieking and hyperbole and grand religious metaphor — it doesn’t sound to me like a belief. It sounds to me like a grasp at Meaning.

Because there are a lot of people in this country who still get scared of men like me, right? And all it takes is a little grandstanding, a nicely chosen word, a little divisive rhetoric and all of a sudden, those people are looking to you with admiration, looking to you for guidance, and you’re getting on TV and the news and suddenly Maggie Gallagher isn’t just someone’s name — it Means something.

I don’t blame you, Mags. Everyone wants Meaning. But you’re earning on the backs of people like me, people who work hard, contribute positive things to the community, who love with honesty and integrity and who don’t deserve to be slandered and spit on and attacked in the way your organization has attacked us.

That’s not cool, Mags. And there are times when I suspect you know it. Because while others may just dismiss you as a raving lunatic with delusions of grandeur (just saying what I’ve heard), I think there are nights when you turn out the light and lie there in dark and you know, in the secret place we all have inside of us, that what you’re doing is wrong.

Next time you have one of those nights, think about me, Mags. I’ll be in the dark in some other part of the world, and I’ll be sleeping well. Because I haven’t built my sense of self on the backs of anyone. I found Meaning in the right place — within myself.

Be well, Maggie Gallagher. I look forward to your next video.

Like many, I was dispirited but not surprised when we lost. The rights of minorities (gays especially) generally don’t do well when put to a popular vote. And the opposition’s central message—that gays want to influence schoolchildren—remains as effective as it is sinister.

The message conjures up the image of gays as child molesters—a myth debunked but never fully extinguished.

A slightly less sinister (but still false) version portrays us as anti-family and anti-morality. Still another falsehood is that we’re trying to “recruit.”

Then there’s the underlying truth that sustains the myth as plausible. Yes, of course marriage equality will affect what children are taught in schools, because if same-sex marriage is legal, they will naturally be taught that it’s legal. That it’s an option for consenting adults who want it. That women sometimes fall in love with women, and men with men, and live happily ever after.

We should not shrink from saying these things, but we do. No doubt, the ugliness of the sinister versions—not to mention our opponents’ penchant for quoting us out of context—makes us nervous about discussing the truthful version. And that’s surely one lesson of this loss: the closet is still powerful, and our opponents use it to their advantage.

But we will not go back in the closet again.

We will keep telling our stories. We will keep showing our faces. We will keep getting married, even if—for now—Maine doesn’t legally recognize our relationships. We will not go back in the closet again.

And though we’ve lost this particular battle, we will continue to win the war.

On the same day that Maine voters took away marriage equality, Detroit (where I live) elected an openly gay city council president. This, in a city that’s 84% African-American and where churches exert considerable political influence. The rest of the country hardly noticed, but Detroit defied several stereotypes on Tuesday.

His name is Charles Pugh. A popular newscaster before running for City Council, Pugh was actually endorsed by both the Council of Baptist Pastors and the AME Ministerial Alliance. They knew he was gay and they endorsed him anyway.

One could argue that Pugh was endorsed—and won—because of name recognition. Detroit elects all nine councilmembers-at-large, and the top vote getter automatically becomes council president. It’s a dumb system in several ways, and in the past it has resulted in famous but incompetent councilmembers—Martha Reeves, of Martha and the Vandellas, leaps to mind. (Incidentally, in this year’s primary Reeves was voted out, and in the general election voters overwhelming approved a referendum for council-by-district.)

But even if Pugh’s landslide can be attributed to sheer popularity, it sends an encouraging message about the way the world is changing. Being openly gay is no longer an absolute bar to getting public support. And even those who regularly oppose us will sometimes let other factors trump whatever makes us scary otherwise.

Meanwhile, the more they know us, the less scary we become.

It’s unfair and unfortunate that we need to work harder than our opponents to win. They win by exploiting fear, which is easy to do when you’re in the majority. We win by building relationships—by letting voters know who we really are. That takes time.

So our opponents have a soundbite edge, but we have a long-term advantage. The closet is crumbling.

In the wake of the Maine loss, we will catch our breath and press on. We will continue to live our lives; we will keep speaking our truth. We will stand up in the firm conviction that our love is real, and valuable, and worthy of equal treatment under the law.

Because whatever legal roadblocks they may put in our way, we will never go back in the closet again.

***********

John Corvino, Ph.D. is an author, speaker and philosophy professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. His column “The Gay Moralist” appears Fridays on 365gay.com.

For more about John Corvino, or to see clips from his “What’s Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?” DVD, visit www.johncorvino.com.

His upcoming speaking appearances include:

November 10: Central Washington University (debate with Glenn Stanton)

November 11: Colorado State University, Pueblo (debate with Glenn Stanton)

November 12: Miami University of Ohio

November 16: Bergen Community College (NJ)

Check school websites for rooms and times.

The strategy worked. Overruling the courts and lawmakers, voters defeated gay marriage ballot measures in California last year and in Maine this week after conservatives convinced residents that same-sex unions would become common classroom fodder without any say from parents.

The punch-to-the gut claim has emerged as the latest tool in the ever-evolving playbook of same-sex marriage opponents, and the Achilles’ heel of the gay-marriage movement. Voters seem to be swayed by the notion that gay marriage will be a corrupting force among children, even though critics blasted the message as a blatantly misleading case of fear-mongering.

“It was very effective. It’s drawing on the fears of the unknown,” said Sandy Maisel, director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement at Maine’s Colby College. “There’s no evidence that it’s going to happen, but there’s very clear evidence that it’s an effective campaign tactic.”

Gay marriage opponents discovered the effectiveness of the schools message in last year’s successful effort to pass Proposition 8 to outlaw gay marriage in California.

After signing up to lead the campaign, political consultants Frank Schubert and Jeff Flint knew they had a problem: Polls were showing that residents tended to not have much of a problem with gay relationships.

With the help of focus groups, surveys and ammunition unwittingly supplied by their opponents, Schubert and Flint soon found a new way to frame the issue, by focusing on education.

It was a departure from past elections when the issue was defined in simpler terms – that marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman. The various strategies have helped conservatives win 31 consecutive ballot initiatives on gay marriage.

“We bet the campaign on consequences, especially on education,” Schubert recalled in March when he and Flint were named the “public affairs team of the year” by the American Association of Political Consultants for their work in California. “Education from the beginning, while it was one of three consequences, it was the one that was the most emotionally charged and the most powerful.”

In California and Maine, gay marriage supporters countered the claims with spots featuring prominent elected officials – California’s chief of public instruction, Maine’s attorney general – who insisted that same-sex marriage had nothing to do with schools.

They also angrily denounced as deceptive the visuals the Sacramento team employed, including a Massachusetts couple who lost a lawsuit seeking parental consent before same-sex families are discussed in elementary classrooms.

But the response did not defuse the hot-button issue, advocates on both sides of the issue observe, in part because they failed to address what many parents knew to be true: Many public schools already have lessons that include references to gay families in the younger grades and confronting anti-gay discrimination for older students. Although the topics usually are broached in the context of appreciating diversity and tolerance, for some parents any discussion of gay people is too close to talking about gay sex.

“The trend that we are seeing is homosexuality is being promoted more and more in schools, and the increase in this is creating a hostile environment for kids with Christian or socially conservative viewpoints,” said Candi Cushman, education analyst for the Christian group Focus on the Family.

Cathy Renna, a public relations consultant in Washington who is married to a woman and has a 4-year-old daughter, said that equating references to gay parents with sex is “like saying that introducing someone’s mother and father to a class means you are talking about heterosexual sex.” But Renna agrees that same-sex marriage supporters need a different comeback to the kids-and-schools argument.

“This idea that gay people are coming to eat your children is a long-standing tactic of the right wing,” she said. “The response to those ads that not only has more truth, but more integrity, is that we live in a diverse world and our kids know that and it’s irresponsible for us not to talk about the world we live in in age-appropriate ways. Dismissing them as lies actually does a disservice not only to the people in our community, but to the public that knows better.”

In California, some gay rights groups want to try to repeal Proposition 8 at the ballot box next year. There has been talk about including language in the new measure that would state that nothing in it is meant to mandate the teaching of same-sex marriage in schools. Some gay rights advocates fear, though, that the wording could be used to undermine the way gay subjects are treated in schools now, said Chaz Lowe, founder of Yes! on Equality.

Melissa Murray, an assistant professor at the UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law who researched the messages used in the Proposition 8 campaign, said gay marriage advocates underestimated how deeply Schubert and Flint’s carefully crafted schools message resonated with the public.

One reason it resonated so deeply is it changed the debate from one of equal rights to the equally cherished notion of individual rights, something gay activists should keep in mind as the marriage moves to other states, Murray said.

“Parents are always thinking about how do I keep unwanted influences out of my children’s lives, and it’s a lot harder to do that as a parent if that influence is the state,” Murray said. “That’s the fear they are tapping into. … and they are just going to keep repackaging it, because it works.”

Let’s end a tiring week (the Maine vote and yesterday’s Fort Hood incident) on some levity. Former reverend and present fame supplicant Ted Haggard is returning to spiritual guidance. In his living room.

Yes the man who described himself as  “a heterosexual with complications” (loves, as in utterly, that line) is back to preaching.

“We wanted to do something in our house to connect with friends,” Haggard said.

I bet Ted wants to reconnect. Let’s give the man credit for a smart move. Get some cute guys to come to your house for “spiritual guidance.” A much shorter walk from the living room to the bedroom. Mrs. Haggard? Sweetie?  I would be worried if I were you because I know what a booty search looks like. Unless you are a perv too and like to see your man work his magic. Nothing wrong with being a perv by the way, as long as you are an adult and your perv stuff involves others of age.

Apparently Haggard’s income comes from traveling to churches talking about himself and those “complications.” Why a church would want this guy to talk is beyond me.  I understand what it means to be a failed human being (trust me), but this guy only functions when he is at the center of any spotlight.

But how do you think yesterday’s election results will influence gay travel patterns? Will queer innkeepers in the very LGBT-friendly and gay-welcoming town of Ogunquit, Maine suffer thanks to the same-sex marriage defeat? Will you change your Ogunquit travel plans and head to Provincetown instead, since Massachusetts has legal gay marriage? Does that even make sense when planning your vacation?

Ben Finzel is senior vice president and head of the public affairs practice at Widmeyer Communications, and has specialized in LGBT communications practice and travel, working with tourism bureaus and following travel trends. “Travel is a personal decision, particularly for our community,” offers Finzel. “Maine is a naturally beautiful state with many wonderful attractions and lots of great people – many of whom are LGBT. I think gay travelers need to make up their own minds to either choose to travel to Maine to demonstrate the positive power of our travel or choose to stay away to demonstrate the negative financial impact we can have on destinations that oppose LGBT equality. You can make a strong case for either position.”

Finzel continues: “Whether or not gay travelers choose to visit Maine in the future, I think we should all make a point of being out, visible and vocal in our travel decisions. Choose service providers that engage with our community and tell them that’s why we chose them. Consider whether or not we feel comfortable visiting specific destinations and engage people in those destinations as we’re considering where to go.”

Need some new possible places to consider as a result of Tuesday’s elections? Quite a few cities saw some gay victories. Chapel Hill, North Carolina will have a gay mayor as the newly elected Mark Kleinschmidt takes office. And Houston, America’s fourth-largest city, could have an openly lesbian mayor; Annise Parker scored the most votes in her race against her opponent; she now faces a heated run-off come December. These are good steps.

Meanwhile, other gays candidates won never-before-held city offices in Detroit, Akron, Ohio and St. Petersburg, Florida. And bless Kalamazoo, Michigan for passing a highly debated ordinance protecting LGBT rights. Now in Kalamazoo it will be illegal to discriminate against gay, lesbian and transgendered individuals in the areas of hiring, housing and public accommodation in the Michigan city. And Washington State saw its domestic partnership laws upheld, too.

But what does this mean for LGBT travel. Do election results influence where you go?

Certainly, the LGBT community always pays attention to how gay-friendly a destination is, legislatively or culturally. And we’ve gotten quite good at picking out which companies we travel with based on their queer-friendly practices. That needn’t change.

“Increasingly, gay travelers are thinking much more strategically about where we spend our travel dollars,” says Finzel. “We look at the level of engagement that airlines and car rental companies have with our community, we consider the role of hoteliers in anti-gay ballot initiatives and we consider how gay-friendly a destination might be based on factors such as safety, role of pro-gay companies in their communities, etc. With so many travel providers and destinations taking an active role in proactively and positively seeking our business, we are realizing we have choices and can choose not to support anti-gay companies or destinations with our travel dollars.”

“I think the next big trend is going to be our community looking for, and demanding, that companies and destinations that want our business earn it with active involvement in opposing anti-gay ballot initiatives and related efforts,” Finzel says. “It won’t be enough for travel industry leaders (or other corporate leaders, for that matter) to say they are gay-friendly: they’ll have to demonstrate they mean it by actively supporting a No On 1 effort (Maine) or a Yes on 71 effort (Washington) and speaking out against attempts to legislate hate.”

Hear that gay-positive travel companies? We commend you on your great LGBT-supportive business practices. But, it’s time to take your gay investment up a notch. It’s getting personal.

So… See you in Maine next summer! Maybe.

A 365Gay history lesson: last year before the Proposition 8 vote, I wished it failed because I knew a few would jump on the “black people are such homophobes” line. Unfortunately Golden State citizens voted against marriage equality and that tired memo got a lot of play here and elsewhere. Research the site and read the comments. They ranged from folk informing me how “my brothers and sisters” screwed over the LGBT community to suggestions it would be a good idea for gays to discriminate against blacks in retaliation. Look at the stuff if you want.

On this week’s election night, was listening to WNYC, and Nate Silver was being interviewed. I have no issues with Silver, link to 538 all all the time and think he adds to the political discourse. It was early in the night and he was asked to give  thoughts on what would happen in Maine. He noted the dearth of an African-American population in the state and said gay marriage would make it. A strange comment coming from a guy who threw needed cold water on those who  decided to blame the small California black population for the Prop 8 defeat.

Well as we all know marriage rights did not make it in the Pine Tree State and to steal from one of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ readers here is the question for the day:

“Why are posters here, and the media generally, ignoring the fact that these results were driven by Maine’s overwhelming number of black churches?”

For those who don’t get it, the question is rhetorical and ironical.

Before a few of you throw up, let’s get the obvious out of the way. Homophobia, is a problem, no matter where it comes from. Too many blacks adopt a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to sexuality. Oh we will groove to the music of Luther Vandross, and wonder out loud why he never found himself a wife. Or we will clap our hands in joyous celebration at the music on church Sunday but go silent when it’s announced the choir director is sick with a “blood disease.”

These realities of black-American life cannot, and should not be ignored; however, too many of us blithely support a narrative where homophobia is somehow  purer  in black and brown communities. Yes we have California, but there is also Washington, DC, and those who leaned on race to explain Prop 8 have been strangely silent on the DC City Council.

From Maine to California, many  black, brown, and white faces will gladly vote against gay marriage. If there is anything that crosses the racial divide it’s bigotry for lesbians and gays.

Conservatives, in contrast, celebrated Maine voters’ rejection of a law that would have allowed gay couples to wed, depicting it as a warning shot that should deter politicians in other states from pushing for same-sex marriage.

“Every time the citizens have voted on marriage, they have always sided with natural marriage,” said Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based Christian legal group. “Maine dramatically illustrates the will of the people, and politicians should wake up and listen.”

Gay activists were frustrated that Obama, who insists he staunchly supports their overall civil rights agenda, didn’t speak out forcefully in defense of Maine’s marriage law before Tuesday’s referendum. The law was repealed in a vote of 53 percent to 47 percent.

“President Obama missed an opportunity to state his position against these discriminatory attacks with the clarity and moral imperative that would have helped in this close fight,” said Evan Wolfson of the national advocacy group Freedom to Marry. “The anti-gay forces are throwing millions of dollars into various unsubtle ads aimed at scaring people, so subtle statements from the White House are not enough.”

The White House, asked about the criticism, had no immediate comment.

The marriage debate is simmering in at least a half-dozen states where a same-sex marriage bill is pending or where a court ruling or existing law is being eyed by conservatives for possible challenge.

Had Maine’s law been upheld by voters, it would have become the sixth state to legalize gay marriage – and the first to affirm it by popular vote. In Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Iowa, gay marriage resulted from court decisions or legislation.

California is sure to be a major battleground over the next several years. Last year, conservatives succeeded in winning public approval of Proposition 8, which overturned a state court ruling allowing gay marriage. Gay rights groups want to take the issue back to the voters but are divided on a timetable.

In the aftermath of the Maine vote, some California activists appealed to their supporters for money to help them put a measure on the 2010 ballot. Other activist leaders want to wait until 2012.

“It’s never too early to go back to right a fundamental wrong,” said Chaz Lowe of Yes! on Equality, who favors shooting for 2010. “A lot of people are angry, a lot of people are upset. It at least has the potential to be a mobilization for the grass roots.”

Some California activists said the outcome in Maine strengthened their belief that it will fall to the U.S. Supreme Court – not the voters – to make gay marriage legal. A federal lawsuit challenging Prop. 8 is scheduled to go to trial in January, the first step in a legal journey that is expected to reach the high court in a few years.

“The results in Maine underscore exactly why we are challenging California’s same-sex marriage ban,” said Chad Griffin, president of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the Los Angeles group spearheading the lawsuit. “The U.S. Constitution guarantees equal rights to every American, and when those rights are violated, it is the role of our courts to protect us, regardless of what the polls say.”

The situation elsewhere:

- In New Jersey, the election Tuesday of Republican Chris Christie as governor puts extra pressure on gay rights supporters to win passage of a pending same-sex marriage bill before the legislative session ends in January. Christie says he would veto such a bill, while lame-duck Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, says he would sign it.

- In Iowa, where the state Supreme Court legalized gay marriage last April, conservatives have no quick way to overturn the ruling. Their only option would be to amend the state constitution through a ballot measure – in 2014 at the earliest – and that effort would need approval from a legislature whose current Democratic leaders don’t even want to debate the issue.

- In New Hampshire, conservatives have filed legislation to repeal the state’s new gay-marriage law and amend the constitution to ban such unions. Kevin Smith, executive director of the conservative Cornerstone Policy Research, said he doubts the measures will pass, but hopes the vote in Maine will give gay-marriage opponents ammunition for the 2010 elections.

“It gives us more fodder to go back to people and say, ‘Look, they aren’t letting you vote on it,’” Smith said.

- In Washington, D.C., conservatives are trying to force a popular vote on a bill headed toward City Council approval that would legalize gay marriage. Michael Crawford, one of the leaders of the local pro-gay marriage campaign, said the result in Maine increased his determination to avoid a ballot measure.

“The same cabal of anti-gay groups who stripped away marriage equality from our families in California and Maine now have their sights on D.C.,” he said.

Crawford was among numerous gay rights leaders complaining about the campaign tactics of the groups that opposed same-sex marriage in Maine and California.

In both states, California-based political strategist Frank Schubert oversaw an advertising campaign warning that “homosexual marriage” would be taught in public schools.

The campaign to defend gay marriage countered that Maine’s state curriculum guidelines contain no reference to marriage, and the state’s Democratic attorney general, Janet Mills, issued an opinion backing that up. But the ads continued.

“It is infuriating to see that the same fear-mongering ads that were used to pass Prop. 8 a year ago have triumphed again at the expense of so many,” said Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest national gay rights group.

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, came away with a different message.

“Over and over again, the American people have affirmed marriage at the ballot box and turned aside the demands of a movement that remains largely driven by Hollywood, some extreme activists and a few activist judges,” he said. “We hope the message sent by Maine’s voters will be heard in Washington and state capitals around the nation.”