After all, this is Maine, people–not some Kumbaya-chanting hippie commune like Iowa.
Besides, with Sen. Olympia Snowe already crossing the aisle as the sole Republican to support health care reform, Maine’s trailblazer reputation is already secured, so there’s no need to get all wild ‘n crazy and start actually treating the gays like real citizens who are afforded the same constitutional protections as everyone else. We’re not trying to ruffle any feathers here! That’s part of what makes Maine, well Maine.
If being ordinary and unexciting wasn’t a part of its history, how else could this proud, 40th most populous state of 1,316,456 be home to the thriving Northeast metropolis known as Portland–South Portland–Biddeford?
Although, gay marriage has now lost in every single state in which civil rights are left up to the voters for a positively St. Louis Rams/Detroit Lions-like record of 0-31, gay rights activists and the handful of hetero Americans who thought the whole ‘separate but equal’ issue was settled with the Supreme Court’s unanimous 1954 landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling striking down segregation as unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, were disappointed to learn that (much like California) the same standards of jurisprudence simply don’t apply to queers in Maine either.
Turns out that even Maine’s independent streak and irrepressible Yankee spirit of fairness and individuality wasn’t enough to stop the hate juggernaut or the indisputable fact that when marriage equality is decided by voters, Jesus tends to trump justice.
I mean if gay marriage cannot win in the original bastion of same-sex sin California, was it ever realistic to expect a rainbow-colored welcome banner in Maine, with or without the Mormon-led cruasde against the scourge of Homosinuality.
As long as America allows civil rights to be decided by voters at the ballot box instead of as a Federal constitutional matter before the U.S. Supreme Court, true equality and freedom–like the founding fathers intended–will never be realized.
Think about it, if we treated blacks like we treat the gays, half the South would still be hosing down black kids trying to go to school, ride the bus, or God forbid, drink from a (whites-only) fountain.
But I guess we could always compromise and enact something like Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. We can all just run around with paper bags over our heads and Hazmat suits on our bodies so nobody knows anything about anybody. That way, who’s black, white or sparkly-rainbow colored would all remain hidden under a common cloak of freedom.
Just like the good old days!
