Politics | 05/06/2009 1:05 pm
Maine Becomes Fifth State to Allow Gay Marriage
Maine’s now the fifth state to allow same-sex marriage.
Maine became the fifth state to allow gay marriage today after Gov. John Baldacci signed legislation expanding the nuptial definition.
The Senate this morning voted 21-13 to pass the bill, which the House approved yesterday.
It was unclear whether Baldacci, a Democrat, would actually sign the bill into law, but he did it, much to conservatives’ chagrin. Republican Sen. Debra Plowman said the law was passed "at the expense of the people of faith."
Maine is the fourth New England state to allow gay marriage: Connecticut, Vermont and Massachusetts all allow gay marriage. So does Iowa.
Read more about: Connecticut, Gay Marriage, Iowa, John Baldacci, Maine, Massachusetts, News, Politics, Vermont
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22 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
Yet, being able to find a cloud in any silver lining, I am not terribly pleased by freedom achieved simply because the majority is becoming more tolerant. If in some corner we have managed to preserve some aspect of freedom and privacy not because we cherish liberty, not because we value the separation of church and state, not because we accept equal treatment under the law as a fundamental principle upon which the rule-of-law itself depends, but simply because the mob has (temporarily) changed its makeup, then that is a shallow victory at best … and very possibly an evanescent one. America ought to be able to do better than that.
"If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten and you’ll always be who you’ve always been"
Sometimes things change for the better, the people (mob) see a wrong that needs to be changed because the rule of law was for another time. ie slavery, women’s suffrege, child labor …….and gay marriage
Right, EKA, and I am glad for that. Trouble is, I currently feeling sorry for myself to be from California; here, people don’t seem to see themselves as participating in a Constitutional Republic. Instead, the general mentality seems to be that we live in a “democracy”, where “democracy” = “mobocracy” or mob-rule. Consequently, everything is up for grabs. If we want to play around with our Constitution … if we want to single out this group or that group and put restrictions on their access to voting or to education or to housing or to employment or to making contracts or to whatever, then it’s all “legitimate” because this is what “democracy” entitles us to do.
This (questionable) mentality has us all fighting over the reins of governmental / legal power; whoever happens to have the upper hand at the moment makes their morality system into the rule of law for everyone else for the moment. How is this fundamentally from what the Taliban do? What sense does it make to spend lives and treasure fighting them over there if we actually admire their style of governance over here?
The point which I am only awkwardly trying to make in the post above [ and over here: http://www.wowowow.com/cl/262411 ] is that if we could only agree on - and keep persistently in mind - a few simple fundamentals, it would free us to live our lives in peace rather than being perpetually at each other’s throats (and thinking that this is somehow normal or proper).
{ BTW, thanks, EKA, for the shout-out ( http://www.wowowow.com/cl/288002 ). A friend of mine says “always watch for the humor”: as you know, there is a wealth of humor at play in that soap opera! }
Nawwww…most people are sick of hearing them complain…there are lots of straight people that agree to tolerate gay rights but never expected them to want to hijack tradional marriage.
Some are just giving in to shut them up, they do not take them seriously…others just don’t believe it will really happen…and many believe that marriage is only between a male and a female.
I predict the Blue states WAAAAAAY before the Red States !
from a proud resident or New England