I'll confess to being surprised by the result in Maine. Having spent a lot of time in the state, where my brother has lived for decades, I thought its libertarian streak would prevail. After all, this wasn't a court ruling being overturned by the electorate. The legislature had passed the gay marriage measure and the governor had enthusiastically signed it. Granted the law wouldn't take effect without the ballot measure, but still you had a big chunk of the political class behind the deal, and you have a state where the medical marijuana measure passed overwhelmingly on the same day. (Who were the pro-pot anti-gay marriage voters, I wonder?)
In any event, I think it is a big defeat in the short run for the gay-marriage movement. In the long run, it's hard to think that the expansion of rights won't prevail. As gay marriage becomes the norm in those states permitting it, the arguments against it will probably fade. Has gay marriage undermined what Miss America contestant Carrie Prejan famously called "opposite marriage"? Have divorce rates been affected, or new marriage formation? As it becomes virtually normal, to paraphrase my colleague, Andrew Sullivan, the practice will gain clout. But for now the defeat of the referendum in Maine not long after California suggests a real firewall for gay marriage. There are legal suits to overturn California's referendum, and perhaps they'll prevail. But in the meantime, the marriage movement seems stalled even as gay acceptance--Houston's on its way to having a gay mayor, as of last night--seems, thankfully, more widespread than ever.
FWIW, I know one pro-pot anti-gay voter quite well. He's white, in his early 20s, thinks of himself as a redneck and listens to a combination of Christian rock and old gangsta rap. Hates liberals, thinks drugs should be legal, hates gays passionately. He's my brother in law. He lives in the mid-Atlantic region, but I bet it's not an uncommon demographic up in parts of Maine.
>> In the long run, it's hard to think that the expansion of rights won't prevail. As gay
>> marriage becomes the norm in those states permitting it, the arguments against it will
>> probably fade.
The "arguments against it" in Maine were that gay marriage would be taught in schools and would somehow harm / taint Maine's children. The "arguments against it" were demonstrably false, but no matter, because the "arguments against it" were nothing more than thinly disguised homophobic revulsion at same-sex relationships.
Will the "arguments against it" "fade"? Sorry, Marc, I am skeptical. Racism, and to a lesser degree sexism, are still strong forces in American culture (and politics), despite our nation's having long ago supposedly "won" our battle against those "isms." Relatedly, homophobia is not going to go away anytime soon, even if it becomes socially marginalized and/or confined to certain segments of the populace, irrespective of the "virtual normalization" of same-sex relationships in certain regions of the country.
What needs to change is not the minds and hearts of the people, but the collective backbone of the (non-ideological) jurists in the nation's federal judicial system. The argument for marriage equality under the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection and/or due process clauses is pretty air-tight. Additionally, a compelling argument can be made that the validity of state ballot measures, like Maine's, are suspect under the "animus" principle articulated in Romer v. Evans (which is one of the arguments being made in the Olsen/Boies lawsuit in California). But many judges are afraid of reaching the analytically correct result because of popular sentiment and concerns over judicial legitimacy.
But contemplate: Do you think Mississippi would have integrated schools or allow interracial marriage today were it not for judicial intervention? For that matter, what do you think the outcome would be if we permitted white Alabamans to vote on a ballot measure to determine whether African Americans have the right to vote?
As long as we allow the civil rights of homosexuals to be determined by the slimmest majority of the populace, gay and lesbians will never be permitted to marry in large portions of the country, no matter how non-controversial the "norm" of marriage equality is in the states permitting it. This is an outrage. It is time for the courts to step up to the plate. Call me elitist, but the civil rights of gay and lesbian Americans should not be determined by veeger's stoned brother-in-law and those like him.
You guys got it all wrong. The vote was lost not because of anti-gay white rednecks. Those people aren't gonna change their votes in their lifetime. I'll tell you what kind of people you should pay attention to.
I am Asian. I am independent but usually vote liberally. I am pro gay rights. Yet I voted against gay marriage in California.
Contradictory? No. If you think deep about it, people like me are the ones that you did not pay attention to. That's why you lost.
Many people voted against gay marriage not because they are against gays. All on the contrary, many of these people are supporters of gay rights. So why did they vote against it?!
To jump to the point: to give gay activists a lesson. This group of key swing voters are the ones that you still don't understand. That's why you lost. That's why you are shocked you've lost. Believe me, this group of people will vote FOR gay marriage, when they see that the gay activists have learnt their lessons.
Let us start with the concept of "right". There is no such a thing as "born rights" as in "I am born with these rights". Rights are granted by the majority of people, period. You can't go to people and cry that this or that is unconstitutional. All that kind of crying out loud is simply lies. The Constitution mentions NOTHING on marriage. If you choose to go down that constitution route, be prepared to see counter-measures like an amendment defining marriage as the union between a man and a woman. We really don't want more antagonisms that tear our society apart.
Please don't act violently. Every single violent act (such as invading other people's property and removing their signs, or mistreating the elderly) simply won't help.
We are talking about creation of a new right. Not restoration of an existing right. You have to understand this point. If you don't understand this point, you don't understand anything.
In other words, you can ask, but you should not demand. Treat the rest of people the very same way you've treated your siblings and parents. That's all what you need to do.
Drop words like "fighting", "constitution", "conservative". You don't use those words to get understanding from your siblings or parents, so don't use them on other people. Stop threatening people. Stop behaving victoriously whenever you make a small gain.
Feel free to point out unfairness. Real-life sufferings.
Treat other people like you treat your sibling and parents. And you will go a long way.
Look up "sophistry" in the dictionary and you'll see "Maine Lesson's" bizarre "argument."
Let's try this one on for size... How about we revive the Chinese Exclusion Act - passed AFTER the 14th Amendment. Would that be "unfair"?
Your point about rights being granted by a majority of the people demonstrates that you have no understanding of the American legal and constitutional tradition. I'm not religious, but I understand the terms "These rights endowed by their Creator to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" to be based not on majoritarian prejudices but on a transcendent understanding of rights. In fact, the whole point of "rights" is that they protect vulnerable minorities from the tyranny of the majority. Again, this is why the Chinese Exclusion Act - or other racist anti-immigrant laws in American history - are as deeply immoral now as they were back then.
So you voted against something you agreed with and stripped away marriage from a segment of your fellow citizens out of spite because you didn't like the way they messaged?
What a petty and weak way to live your life.
"To jump to the point: to give gay activists a lesson."
Sad.
I am really trying to understand, or "learn the lesson" here, but I am having a hard time. I don't believe that rights are granted by the majority of the people, period. I never will, and I can't see how most Americans with an understanding of our nation's history could either. I also don't understand why you "can't" say that "this or that" is unconstitutional; the US Supreme Court has made any number of decisions regarding the constitutionality of various marriage laws, among a myriad of other topics on which the Constitution "mentions NOTHING". Americans "demand" each and every day that the courts make decisions about these very issues.
I have never acted violently, nor ever threatened anyone. Whether or not I am an "activist" is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. But I can assure you that I would not vote to strip away a right granted to my parents or siblings, whether it was supposed "new right" or not, in order to teach them a lesson. If anything, my action would be, to my mind, an antagonism that would tear my family apart.
So, I don't think I have learned the lesson that I was given. And to think it came from some who avow to be pro-gay rights only makes it that much more confusing.
More bigotry wrapped up in self-justification.
Yawn.
So, despite supporting gay rights (which I frankly doubt you really do), you voted against them because gay people are a bullying, violent, angry mob of unreasonable thugs who need to be "taught a lesson"? Having spent the whole of my high school years being bullied and tormented - as well as being ostracized by much of my family - while scarsely daring to open my mouth until I left home at 21, I find it galling to be lectured on 'good manners', especially by someone who purports to be a 'supporter'. Firstly, the overwhelming majority of gay rights protests and demonstrations have been peaceful. Passionate, but peaceful. This in the face of a society steeped in homophobic bigotry - with the Asian American community absolutely no exception in this regard. What kind of person are you to vote against gay rights because of a couple of signs Yes-on-8 pulled up from people's lawns, when there are murders, beatings, firings, insults, and generally denigration of gay people in every corner of the nation. Sounds like what you really want is for us to beg - I mean, really beg - for your charity until you deem we're subservient and compliant enough to be granted our equality. You are the soft end of why minority right should NEVER be put to a majority vote.
I agree that it is not useful or accurate to describe those who voted to repeal the Maine legislation, as well as those who have voted anti-gay-marriage in other states, as haters, rednecks, ignoramuses, etc.
The fact is, social norms have a long evolution and they are not likely to change overnight. I understand that the gay lobby has spent the last 30 years, with some success, attempting to "normalize" homosexuality, and the gay-marriage struggle is part of that long process. We will see how it plays out over time.
I am middle-aged, well-educated, well-traveled, widely read, know which fork to use and have gay friends and relatives. Still, gay marriage qua marriage does not sit well with me. Maybe it is just semantic - I have no problem with civil unions, equal rights as to insurance, survivor benefits, etc. But I don't want it to be defined as marriage. Nor do I want polygamous unions to be defined as marriage. Or unions between adults and children, though NAMBLA would have us think differently.
Sorry, but for me this is not about civil rights. I understand that the civil rights angle is clever positioning- after all, only haters and bigots and other such loathsome people can be against civil rights - but I'm not buying it.
In every state in which homosexual marriage has been put to a vote, the people have spoken. And they have said they don't want it. Maybe that will change over time, but not just yet.
POM, nice try at a "reasonable person's" objections to gay marriage, but there are chinks in your façade of reasonableness through which the deeper bigotry shines through: "normalize" in quotes, mention of polygamy and pedophilia (both endemic in the heterosexual world), a denigrating of the civil rights angle, the results of the votes throughout the country. You are the very worst kind of homophobe: one who smiles at us, with the knife ready to plunge in our backs. Do your so-called gay friends and relatives know what you really think? You're a coward - you want to deny gay people their right to equality, but not be called out as a bigot.
One thing you're right about is that it WILL change over time. Probably no thanks to you.
Following up on my earlier comment, Jamelle over at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen makes the same point, with helpful pie chart:
http://www.ordinary-gentlemen.com/2009/11/survey-says-49-of-americans-dont-much-like-homosexuality/
I don't understand the 3year old mentality of many of these gay marriage supporters. The "we'll keep trying till we get it done" idea reminds me of the kids I see with their moms saying " Can I have it? No. Can I have it? No. Can I have it? No.Can I have it? No.Can I have it? No.Can I have it? No.Can I have it? No.Can I have it? NO! Now shut up before I slap you!" The measure was on the ballot. Gay marriage was voted down. Now leave it alone!