Maine Didn't Give Gay Marriage a Chance

Gay rights march in Washington D.C.

When the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage in 2003, the polls showed disapproval by a margin of 53 percent to 35 percent. After the ruling went into effect, legislators geared up to reverse it by amending the state constitution. But two years later, the poll numbers had flipped, and the backlash never came. That's because reversing the court's ruling was a long process, not a quick and hasty ballot initiative like the one that Maine passed in Tuesday's election. In Maine, the law passed last May and never even went into effect. In Massachusetts, by contrast, as I wrote last year:

According to state law, lawmakers had to vote twice, both chambers together and in two separate years, to reject the court's ruling. And even then, they would succeed only in getting their state constitutional amendment on the state ballot, where voters would have had one more chance to save gay marriage.

The champagne and the marriage licenses began flowing in Massachusetts in May 2004, around the time the clock started on the complicated process to overturn the gay-marriage decision. The Legislature's first vote went against same-sex marriage—though for civil unions—by a bare majority, 105 votes to 92. No supporter of gay marriage lost his or her seat in the next election, according to Yale law professor William Eskridge. Opponents got nervous. So, they started down a different road: If they gathered enough signatures to get their amendment on the ballot, they'd need only 25 percent support from the Legislature at two constitutional conventions to put it to a statewide vote.

This meant more years and more marriage licenses—10,000-plus in the state. And time proved to be gay marriage's best friend. Plenty of signatures were collected, and on its first go-round, the amendment—anti-gay marriage, pro-civil union—won 62 of 200 votes in the Legislature—enough to make it past the 50-vote threshold. But when the Legislature took up the measure again in 2007, Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick lobbied hard against the amendment, and 17 lawmakers defected. To the surprise of the same-sex marriage opponents, their amendment couldn't even muster support from 25 percent of the Legislature and went down to defeat.

In Massachusetts, familiarity with same-sex marriage bred the opposite of contempt. In Maine, as in California last year, voters didn't give themselves time to get used to the new unions. Andrew Sullivan is right to take heart in the closeness of the vote (53 percent to 47 percent, it looks like) and to remind us that, "A decade ago, the marriage issue was toxic. Now it divides evenly." He also predicts that, "Soon, it will win everywhere." He's more likely to be right the fewer insta-cook ballot initiatives we have. That's the reality of direct democracy right now.

Photograph of a gay rights march in Washington, D.C. in October by Getty Images.

Tags: gay marriage, maine, question 1, same-sex marriage; ballot initatives

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Emily Bazelon is a founding editor of Double X, and a writer and editor at Slate.

Comments

since when do we vote to

By: el polacko | Wed, 11/04/2009 - 23:16

since when do we vote to strip our fellow citizens of legal rights ?!
we will look back on this period in shame.

Yes, let's get the courts involved

By: Diggs | Wed, 11/04/2009 - 20:33

I agree completely with the first commenter; the courts need to get involved when a majority of the electorate votes the wrong way.
So if anyone wants to let me know a good lawyer who will take on the constitutionality of requiring healthcare coverage as a requirement for US citizenship, the constitutionality of GM's takeover and CEO firing, the constitutionality of having a pay czar who can arbitrarily lower the pay of someone who has signed a legal contract with a company...please let me know. I think the electorate clearly voted the wrong way.

Best left to the courts. Activist or not.

By: Kapt Z | Wed, 11/04/2009 - 18:12

I have reserservations about letting a majority decide a minority's marital status. We're talking about the personal lives of two adults. I don't know how their marital status truly affects anyone of us enough that we should have the power to decide if they can marry in the first place.

To quote my late father's sage advice about other's personal lives-

"It's none of your damned business."

@StridentSound

By: buggie | Wed, 11/04/2009 - 17:55

I completely agree. The issue is not right for state referendum, and it is beyond me how anyone can oppose gay marriage and not think it immoral. However, I will add what I add in all my comments about gay marriage- why is this even an issue? Why is the government allowed to be involved in marriage? If unmarried people were afforded the same rights as married people, and there were no discrimination on the basis of marital status, I bet that the "marriage proponents" wouldn't care one way or another if gays were allowed to married for personal reasons. It's only because the government affords those 1,100 discriminatory benefits to marrieds that they feel as if they are a separate, privileged class, entitled to rewards and securities the rest of us do not deserve. They want to hold onto these privileges and status so badly, that they have convinced themselves that it is a zero sum game. After all, what is the point of their own marriage if everyone else is given equal rights? I question the very existence of marriage in federal and state law in a country where there is a constitutional separation of church and state. Why not skip the gay marriage debaucle altogether and just give everyone equal rights, whether married or no. But equal rights...I don't know, that's a big stretch in America.

Bigotry, plain and simple

By: StridentSounds | Wed, 11/04/2009 - 15:40

Do not tell me you're not a bigot if you don't support gay marriage. I'm tired of people sidestepping the issue and saying that separate but equal policies are the same. A marriage license does not come from the church, but from the state. If you're saying I'm an abomination, I'd like to see you revoke all the marriage licenses of the atheists out there. But then I guess because their marriage is between "One man and one woman" it's still considered traditional, despite the fact neither of them might believe in God. Huh?

The reason why we're so upset with this- or the reason why this infuriates me- is the obvious connection the civil rights movement in the 1960s. If we had waited to vote on rights for African Americans, state by state, IT NEVER WOULD HAVE HAPPENED. It is completely irresponsible for any state to allow the majority to vote on who gets what rights. You, who think you can impose your will because you're the "majority" should think good and hard how it would feel for your rights to be taken away. The vote in Maine as in other states was a charade of justice.

What's the use in having a constitution if you're allowed to pick and choose who gets equality? Maine, along with the other 30 some states denying gay marriage effectively burned the constitution and said "to hell with you- we aren't going to allow the 1,100 rights granted to married couples on the basis of who you are." But then this isn't so surprising- people used to do this all the time, just a few decades ago. Or don't you remember?

The supreme court overturned the traditional view of marriage between WHITES AND BLACKS (that's right, it was 'unnatural' for blacks to marry whites 40 years ago) because they could not trust the 'will of the majority.' If you're telling me this is any different than that, it's bull (and you know it).

America is the land of bigots, and I'm furious enough to say we need our own Malcolm X to scare the straights into accepting us peacefully. Because while we're waiting on the world to change, state after state is telling us 'better luck next time.'

I do not think we should be

By: taytay | Wed, 11/04/2009 - 15:03

I do not think we should be condeming the voters in Maine that voted against gay marriage, and painting them to be narrow minded, or eager to go out and vote against gay marriage to crush the dreams of gay people and gay activists. I mean what do you want? An election took place on gay marriage in Maine and the results were 53% opposed it and 47% were for it. I don't see any reason to be a sore loser about it. Yea, the results were "narrow", but I do not think that that fact should be used to diminish the 53% of votes against gay marriage and flatter the 47% of votes for gay marriage. And the writer never said anything about the other 30 states that rejected the gay marriage law...It's not like Maine is some big bad state, "how dare they vote against gay marriage?" I mean jeez, why? Because Maine is a part of New England or something? Well, excuse Maine for happening to disagree with Massachusetts and the rest of them. Apparently more than half of the fifty states rejected gay marriage like Maine just did,(not that that fact makes them right or wrong) so I just don't see why people are getting so hyped up about Maine and it's decision against gay marriage. I just think this article is a little petty and unfair.

31 ... keep it up

By: pabarge | Wed, 11/04/2009 - 14:06

31 states in a row have now sh*t-canned gay marriage. In a row. Keep it up. Please.