Maine voters narrowly reject same-sex marriage rights by tyranny of majority

November 4, 4:35 PMSonoma County Civil Rights ExaminerMegan Coffey

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Supporters of marriage equality for same-sex couples post a sign on Election Day. Photo: AP/Robert F. Bukaty

Bigotry: 31; Equality: 0.

Here is the headline I had hoped to run for this article: "Maine becomes first state to affirm gay marriage by popular vote." 

Instead, I am forced to report that on November 3, Maine became the thirty-first state in a row to reject marriage equality for same-sex couples at the ballot box.  Maine's Question 1, which rescinded a law granting gay couples the right to marry, passed by the agonizingly close margin of 52.8% to 47.2%--almost the exact same percentages that prevailed in California's Proposition 8 contest the previous year.

This past spring, Maine was the first state to grant LGBT marriage rights through the legislative process rather than by judicial review.  Moreover, the legislation (put on hold until this November's popular vote) was signed into law by Governor John Baldacci, who had switched his position 180 degrees from firm opposition to unqualified support for what the governor came to call "a question of fairness and equal protection under the law."

Unfortunately, Maine voters chose prejudice over fairness and bigotry over the US Constitution, whose Fourteenth Amendment supposedly guarantees all citizens the equal protection Baldacci spoke of.

Maine's induction into the dubious company of the thirty-one states that have voted to ban marriage equality demonstrates once again how wrong it is to subject the civil rights of an oppressed minority to a popular referendum.  When the California Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage for the state in 1948, for example, polls showed 90% of the public opposed to such unions; nineteen years later, when the US Supreme Court finally banned anti-miscegenation laws throughout the nation, polls indicated that 70% of the population still opposed allowing interracial marriage.  If we had waited until a majority of the voters was ready to approve interracial unions, we'd probably still be waiting.  In fact, we'd probably still have segregation and poll taxes, too.

So why are LGBT people being forced to watch their civil rights voted down, again and again, by the tyranny of the majority?