Weaver95

It was a close vote, that’s for sure but yes - gay marriage was indeed defeated by the voters last night.

With 87 percent of precincts reporting, gay-marriage foes had 53 percent of the vote in a referendum that asked Maine voters whether they wanted to repeal a law allowing same-sex marriage that had passed the Legislature…

So basically the legislature AND the governor tried to move ahead of the voters and learned that you can’t do that in even the semi-democratic muck of a government we’ve currently got going on in this country.  Bad news for the gay rights activists, but a victory for the cause of democracy in this country.

however - that was a much closer vote than I had anticipated.  To tell you the truth, I thought for sure that ‘gay marriage’ would pass.  It had a LOT of high powered support, plus the legislature and the support of the governor.  But apparently nobody in Maine bothered to actually consult the voters themselves, and that’s where the whole thing bogged down.  Now, I’m sure the gay rights activists are disappointed.  If something I believed in so strongly ended up being defeated I’d be disappointed as well…but that’s just how things work in a democratic republic form of government - you take the good with the bad.  Today (or rather last night) you lost.  dust yourself off and come back next year to try again.

Here’s an interesting phrase I hear tossed around a lot today:

Gay marriage has now lost in every state — 31 in all — in which it has been put to a popular vote.

I honestly don’t know if that’s true or not.  I really haven’t followed the matter as closely as other bloggers have - believe it or not it’s not something I care much about.  I consider it largely a matter to be decided by the states themselves.  But if it’s true and gay marriage has been defeated in every state in which it’s come up for a vote…well that tells me something right there about the issue.  This country does not think gays have any special right to be married.  You might not want to accept that fact, but there it is - with a losing streak that long, it’s time to face reality.

Now,  you can do two things about this loss - you can scream, cry and shout about how ‘unjust’ and ‘unfair’ it is…or you can sit down and figure out how and why you’re losing.  I’ve got several theories as to the reasons for the continued losses by the gay rights movement at the ballot box, but i’m not going to cover them here.  Suffice it to say that it’s got a lot to do with the tactics used to try and get ‘gay rights’ and ‘gay marriage’ into law across the nation.  But that’s a discussion for another time and a different post.

Not that it matters of course.  I strongly suspect that the ballot vote was largely a formality.  No matter how the vote turned out on gay marriage, I’m fairly sure it’s going to end up in a court docket somewhere.  And in Maine, what the gay rights groups failed to accomplish at the ballot the might just manage to accomplish via judicial fiat.  And oh what fun THAT shall be to watch!