Slog Comments
Maine Voters Are Weird
1
"I'm trying to wrap my mind around the voter who's fine with pot stores in the middle of town but, criminy on a cracker, don't let two men enter into a state-sanctioned contract that has no bearing outside their home!"
Imagine a voter who doesn't like gays. and smokes pot. wham! does that work? It's not like these people are schooled in legal philosophy, Dominic.
Imagine a voter who doesn't like gays. and smokes pot. wham! does that work? It's not like these people are schooled in legal philosophy, Dominic.
2
There won't be equality for gay people until someone finds a cure for religious bigotry. Smoking pot has nothing to do with it.
3
I'm looking forward to some analysis on the rampant homophobia in the white community. Maine is disproportionately white - dramatically so - I find it hard to believe that this has nothing to do with the vote, and isn't more influential than marijuana usage. The silence on the blogosphere about this fact is staggering - political correctness run amock.
5
When the civil rights of Gay Americans (and it's only ever been Gay Americans no other minority group that have had their civil rights put to a popular vote) are put to a vote, don't expect victory. Gay Americans, as odd as it may seem, are still hated by most Americans and it's been shown in state after state after state after state.
6
Rednecks like pot. They get high and drunk and drive their snowmobiles into trees. That's Maine in the winter.
7
It's simple: There is a certain percentage of libertarian-minded voters who are only concerned with protecting freedoms that apply to specifically to themselves: They can see a clear enough benefit for themselves being able to smoke pot legally, but since they can't see any benefit in being able to marry somebody of the same sex, they don't recognize it as a "right" and don't care to sanction it. Plus, they probably suspect it will cost them money somehow, and libertarians are categorically opposed to paying for anything.
8
@3: I don't think you can say "Prop 8 failed because black people voted against it" and then turn around and say "Gay marriage failed in Maone because white people voted against it."
Sargon has it nailed, for what it's worth.
Sargon has it nailed, for what it's worth.
9
In my albeit limited experience, many people against gay marriage don't see it as a gay rights issue, they see it more as a "definition of marriage" issue. I've heard people otherwise wholly for gay rights contend that they can't get behind gay marriage because they just don't believe that that's what marriage is. Not that that makes any sense to me, but it could help explain.
10
"At least those are mostly older voters. They'll all be dead soon—unless the medical marijuana keeps them alive."
Do we know already that that's the case among Maine voters who voted against gay marriage? If so, that'd be encouraging, but I'd like to see the data.
Do we know already that that's the case among Maine voters who voted against gay marriage? If so, that'd be encouraging, but I'd like to see the data.
12
Remember Maine: Full Federal Equality Now!
By SHERRY WOLF
IN STARK contrast to the surge of pro-LGBT activism, and legislative and legal progress in recent months, Maine voters overturned equal marriage rights on Election Day by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent.
Voter turnout of nearly 50 percent, local efforts by 8,000 volunteers—many of them straight—and a national blitz of phone banking to try to sway Mainers to uphold equal marriage was not sufficient to retain same-sex marriage in that state. Maine’s Question 1—similar to California’s Proposition 8 that reversed same-sex marriage rights in that state exactly a year ago—once again placed civil rights on the ballot, this time in an off-year election.
In Washington state, a new law that greatly expands the rights of LGBT couples—though doesn’t grant marriage itself—was approved by voters, but by an unexpectedly narrow margin of 51 percent to 49 percent.
The failure of the same-sex marriage forces in Maine’s No on 1 campaign to retain marriage equality passed earlier this year by the legislature highlights four central problems: 1) Civil rights activists are weakest outside of urban areas where the financial and institutional resources of the right can dominate rural politics; 2) President Obama and the Democrats have failed to deliver on their promise of “fierce advocacy” of LGBT civil rights; 3) LGBT rights must be enacted into law by the federal government; and 4) Civil rights should not be reduced to election fodder to be manipulated by well-financed bigots.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
NATIONWIDE, LGBT activists scrambled in a monumental effort to try to stop right-wingers in Maine from succeeding in what was often termed a “mini-Prop 8” effort that relied on money from the Catholic Church and blitzed the media with lies about how gay marriage would be taught in the schools and imposed on religious institutions.
Local groups will assess the No on 1 organizing efforts in coming weeks, but suffice it to say that despite what appears to have been an energetic and collaborative campaign, equal marriage has lost in every state it has been put to a popular vote—31 in all. Despite the fact that the No on 1 campaign, Protect Maine Equality, raised $4 million and the anti-same-sex marriage forces raised only $2.5 million, the strategy of statewide ballot initiatives plays to activists’ weaknesses, especially in non-urban areas.
In addition to the purposely confusing language used by the right in these initiatives—voting “yes” denied equality, voting “no” would have retained it—larger population centers create opportunities for activists to reach people in groups, as in Portland, Maine, where the vote was an overwhelming 73 percent against Question 1. At University of Maine’s Orono campus, 81 percent of students voted against taking away equal marriage rights, also showing the generation gap that persists on this question.
Similarly, in Washington state, it was urban King County that voted overwhelmingly for the “everything but marriage” referendum, while the less populated eastern part of the state voted against it.
Just three weeks after the massively successful LGBT National Equality March that drew more than 200,000 people demanding full federal equality now, conservatives are punching back. Right-wing bigots like Pat Robertson have attacked recently enacted federal hate crimes legislation, saying, “The noose has tightened around the necks of Christians to keep them from speaking out on certain moral issues.”
In the face of this hostility and legal challenges, the Democrats have been passive at best and hostile at worst. The White House and Congress have failed to deliver so far on promises to reverse decades of legal discrimination in federal and state laws.
When Attorney General Eric Holder was asked about Maine’s Question 1, he said that he and President Obama “are of the view it is for states to make these decisions.” Holder later said to one blogger, “I don’t really know enough about the referendum over there to comment.” As National Equality March organizer Cleve Jones said on MSNBC of President Obama’s silence on Question 1, “This is a far cry from the fierce advocacy he promised us in his campaign.”
Even more outrageous, not only did the Democratic National Committee (DNC) refuse to help finance the No on 1 campaign, but it expressed crass indifference to LGBT rights when the DNC’s organization “Organizing for America” (formerly known as “Obama for America”) e-mailed Maine voters the day before the election about getting involved…in the gubernatorial contest in New Jersey (which lost)!
The failure of the Democrats to hold onto huge gains made in the 2008 election in New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races—and the flaccid response from Obama’s base in this off-year election—reveals that the inability of the Democrats in power to deliver on their promises is alienating progressives.
“President Obama and his team were zero help in this critical battle, and in the last week might actually have hurt us,” said David Mixner, long-time Democratic Party activist and initiator of the call for the National Equality March.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MAINE’S REVERSAL on marriage equality proves once again the bankruptcy of the state-by-state, issue-by-issue strategy upheld by many establishment LGBT forces. This approach concedes that civil rights must remain on the precarious turf of the states, in a country where one Constitution is supposed to guarantee equal protection under the law.
Activists can no longer accept that LGBT civil rights can be attained outside the federal government. Even if Maine voters had rejected Question 1, most marriage rights like Social Security are only gained through the federal government and married LGBT people in Maine, as in the equal marriage states, would have remained second-class citizens under the law.
The right’s strategy of placing LGBT civil rights on state ballots for a vote places the battle for human equality on an unstable and hostile terrain. Why should anyone have to battle in each locality for equal treatment in a country where the Fourteenth Amendment—passed after the Civil War!—guarantees equal protection to all U.S. citizens? Why should LGBT people have to repeatedly reassert that we are equal human beings in every state and municipality 45 years after the Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination?
Civil rights cannot wait for the approval of reactionaries. According to that logic, Blacks, too, should have waited for public opinion to catch up with their demands. But in 1968, one year after the Supreme Court struck down bans on interracial marriage as unconstitutional, Gallup polls showed that only 20 percent of Americans approved of marriages between Blacks and whites.
The failure of Maine’s No on 1 campaign highlights why the National Equality March demand for full equality in all matters of civil law in all 50 states must continue to be the rallying cry of grassroots activists across the country.
This is the Week of Initiative called by Equality Across America, the national network attempting to gather these groupings to map out a national strategy to continue this fight. In cities and towns across the country this week, activists will be marching and protesting this defeat in Maine—and celebrating victories in Washington state and Kalamazoo, Michigan, where pro-LGBT referenda passed.
Remember Maine. Get out and organize for full federal equality now!
SHERRY WOLF is the author of Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics and Theory of LGBT Liberation (Haymarket Books, 2009) and was on the steering committee of the National Equality March.
More...
By SHERRY WOLF
IN STARK contrast to the surge of pro-LGBT activism, and legislative and legal progress in recent months, Maine voters overturned equal marriage rights on Election Day by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent.
Voter turnout of nearly 50 percent, local efforts by 8,000 volunteers—many of them straight—and a national blitz of phone banking to try to sway Mainers to uphold equal marriage was not sufficient to retain same-sex marriage in that state. Maine’s Question 1—similar to California’s Proposition 8 that reversed same-sex marriage rights in that state exactly a year ago—once again placed civil rights on the ballot, this time in an off-year election.
In Washington state, a new law that greatly expands the rights of LGBT couples—though doesn’t grant marriage itself—was approved by voters, but by an unexpectedly narrow margin of 51 percent to 49 percent.
The failure of the same-sex marriage forces in Maine’s No on 1 campaign to retain marriage equality passed earlier this year by the legislature highlights four central problems: 1) Civil rights activists are weakest outside of urban areas where the financial and institutional resources of the right can dominate rural politics; 2) President Obama and the Democrats have failed to deliver on their promise of “fierce advocacy” of LGBT civil rights; 3) LGBT rights must be enacted into law by the federal government; and 4) Civil rights should not be reduced to election fodder to be manipulated by well-financed bigots.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
NATIONWIDE, LGBT activists scrambled in a monumental effort to try to stop right-wingers in Maine from succeeding in what was often termed a “mini-Prop 8” effort that relied on money from the Catholic Church and blitzed the media with lies about how gay marriage would be taught in the schools and imposed on religious institutions.
Local groups will assess the No on 1 organizing efforts in coming weeks, but suffice it to say that despite what appears to have been an energetic and collaborative campaign, equal marriage has lost in every state it has been put to a popular vote—31 in all. Despite the fact that the No on 1 campaign, Protect Maine Equality, raised $4 million and the anti-same-sex marriage forces raised only $2.5 million, the strategy of statewide ballot initiatives plays to activists’ weaknesses, especially in non-urban areas.
In addition to the purposely confusing language used by the right in these initiatives—voting “yes” denied equality, voting “no” would have retained it—larger population centers create opportunities for activists to reach people in groups, as in Portland, Maine, where the vote was an overwhelming 73 percent against Question 1. At University of Maine’s Orono campus, 81 percent of students voted against taking away equal marriage rights, also showing the generation gap that persists on this question.
Similarly, in Washington state, it was urban King County that voted overwhelmingly for the “everything but marriage” referendum, while the less populated eastern part of the state voted against it.
Just three weeks after the massively successful LGBT National Equality March that drew more than 200,000 people demanding full federal equality now, conservatives are punching back. Right-wing bigots like Pat Robertson have attacked recently enacted federal hate crimes legislation, saying, “The noose has tightened around the necks of Christians to keep them from speaking out on certain moral issues.”
In the face of this hostility and legal challenges, the Democrats have been passive at best and hostile at worst. The White House and Congress have failed to deliver so far on promises to reverse decades of legal discrimination in federal and state laws.
When Attorney General Eric Holder was asked about Maine’s Question 1, he said that he and President Obama “are of the view it is for states to make these decisions.” Holder later said to one blogger, “I don’t really know enough about the referendum over there to comment.” As National Equality March organizer Cleve Jones said on MSNBC of President Obama’s silence on Question 1, “This is a far cry from the fierce advocacy he promised us in his campaign.”
Even more outrageous, not only did the Democratic National Committee (DNC) refuse to help finance the No on 1 campaign, but it expressed crass indifference to LGBT rights when the DNC’s organization “Organizing for America” (formerly known as “Obama for America”) e-mailed Maine voters the day before the election about getting involved…in the gubernatorial contest in New Jersey (which lost)!
The failure of the Democrats to hold onto huge gains made in the 2008 election in New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races—and the flaccid response from Obama’s base in this off-year election—reveals that the inability of the Democrats in power to deliver on their promises is alienating progressives.
“President Obama and his team were zero help in this critical battle, and in the last week might actually have hurt us,” said David Mixner, long-time Democratic Party activist and initiator of the call for the National Equality March.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MAINE’S REVERSAL on marriage equality proves once again the bankruptcy of the state-by-state, issue-by-issue strategy upheld by many establishment LGBT forces. This approach concedes that civil rights must remain on the precarious turf of the states, in a country where one Constitution is supposed to guarantee equal protection under the law.
Activists can no longer accept that LGBT civil rights can be attained outside the federal government. Even if Maine voters had rejected Question 1, most marriage rights like Social Security are only gained through the federal government and married LGBT people in Maine, as in the equal marriage states, would have remained second-class citizens under the law.
The right’s strategy of placing LGBT civil rights on state ballots for a vote places the battle for human equality on an unstable and hostile terrain. Why should anyone have to battle in each locality for equal treatment in a country where the Fourteenth Amendment—passed after the Civil War!—guarantees equal protection to all U.S. citizens? Why should LGBT people have to repeatedly reassert that we are equal human beings in every state and municipality 45 years after the Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination?
Civil rights cannot wait for the approval of reactionaries. According to that logic, Blacks, too, should have waited for public opinion to catch up with their demands. But in 1968, one year after the Supreme Court struck down bans on interracial marriage as unconstitutional, Gallup polls showed that only 20 percent of Americans approved of marriages between Blacks and whites.
The failure of Maine’s No on 1 campaign highlights why the National Equality March demand for full equality in all matters of civil law in all 50 states must continue to be the rallying cry of grassroots activists across the country.
This is the Week of Initiative called by Equality Across America, the national network attempting to gather these groupings to map out a national strategy to continue this fight. In cities and towns across the country this week, activists will be marching and protesting this defeat in Maine—and celebrating victories in Washington state and Kalamazoo, Michigan, where pro-LGBT referenda passed.
Remember Maine. Get out and organize for full federal equality now!
SHERRY WOLF is the author of Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics and Theory of LGBT Liberation (Haymarket Books, 2009) and was on the steering committee of the National Equality March.
13
They are honest hard working people with a strong set of moral values. No matter how much they are disparage here. When you have a loved one afflicted with a terminal illness, the medical use of a substance (as opposed to the uncontrolled use for recreation, abuse and criminal use that Dom advocates) is a compassionate decision.
14
Most of Maine does not hate gay people. Slightly over half of Maine voters approved that bullshit. The other half worked tirelessly against to vote it down, and came just short of their goal.
Sweeping generalizations are supposed to be what the other side does.
Sweeping generalizations are supposed to be what the other side does.
16
@15 - I thought the same thing and had to keep myself from laughing out loud in my cubical at work.
17
The same thing happened in Montana back in '04-- the medical marijuana and anti-gay marriage amendment passed the same year.
I think the main issue is that there's a butt-ton of money in the anti-gay lobby, but not so much in the anti-pot lobby.
That and the imagery of a dieing person being denied a drug that will ease thier suffering is a lot more straightforward than finding an image of gay rights that's going to really resonate with people who aren't really all that comfortable with gays in general.
I think the main issue is that there's a butt-ton of money in the anti-gay lobby, but not so much in the anti-pot lobby.
That and the imagery of a dieing person being denied a drug that will ease thier suffering is a lot more straightforward than finding an image of gay rights that's going to really resonate with people who aren't really all that comfortable with gays in general.
18
Plenty of homophobes (racists, too) like pot. And no, they're not all old or ill. It's easy for me to see it, as I grew up in the South.
19
I agree with several of the others here: It's a fallacy to equate a "liberal" attitude about cannabis with liberal social values in general. Sure, plenty of pro-pot folks are progressive-alternative types. But plenty are also rednecks, self-absorbed yuppies, self-described libertarians of the Cato Institute vein, and plain-old hypocritical Republicans (per LoveChild's oh-so-righteous intolerance).
21
My only advice to LGBT in Maine is take your queer ass and your queer cash across the border to Canada. They may not like you anymore in Nova Scotia but you're still an equal under the law.
22
I don't think supporting gay marriage is a libertarian position. The libertarian position would seem to be more marriage is private/religious and the government shouldn't be handing out licenses.
23
Mainers don't like bein' busted havin' weed in tha' cah, but think two dudes gettin' married is wicked queeah. Lot's of folks is like this. I ain't that suprised tha referendum took a diggah.
24
i grew up in a neighborhood that was all Republican Deadheads, so this isn't shocking to me at all.
28
There is a big division in Maine that I think is important to understand. There is a great ruined interior--poor economy, rampant alcoholism, long-term structural poverty. I grew up there and that is where the majority of the people who voted for the ban live. People try to manage their lives through two avenues: Religion and drug use. Many people use both and don't see the hypocrisy. It's a part of the state that is depopulating because of the economy and in crisis. That's why people stick to their values so firmly.
Remember, in southern Maine, in Portland, South Portland, most coastal towns, the majority--by a lot, voted to uphold legal same sex marriage. I wouldn't make any assumptions about Maine as a whole state because of these divisions.
Remember, in southern Maine, in Portland, South Portland, most coastal towns, the majority--by a lot, voted to uphold legal same sex marriage. I wouldn't make any assumptions about Maine as a whole state because of these divisions.
29
Don't forget about the small, dedicated bloc of voters who mindlessly vote "yes" on everything. In my backwards state, people voted "yes" to build a high-speed monorail, then voted "yes" four years later to scrap the monorail. More recently, they voted "yes" to require 60% approval for future amendments, which continue to pass almost without exception.
I don't know how many people actually operate this way, but I bet it's enough that a lot of these amendments would go the other way if "yes" and "no" were reversed.
I don't know how many people actually operate this way, but I bet it's enough that a lot of these amendments would go the other way if "yes" and "no" were reversed.
30
Nothing to do with equal rights......Any person can marry, just not people of the same sex.
What's the big deal. Marriage is overrated anyway.
At least gay couples will never have to pay alimony.
What's the big deal. Marriage is overrated anyway.
At least gay couples will never have to pay alimony.
31
Nothing to do with equal rights......Any person can marry, just not someone of the same sex.
What's the big deal. Marriage is overrated anyway.
At least gay couples will never have to pay alimony.
And yes, us Mainers do LOVE pot.
What's the big deal. Marriage is overrated anyway.
At least gay couples will never have to pay alimony.
And yes, us Mainers do LOVE pot.
32
@31
That's kind of like saying you can outlaw the bible but it's okay because Christians and atheists are both 'equally forbidden' to read it.
Pot has nothing to do with dignity or insight. All you stoners out there who think you're enlightened - you aren't much different than the punk breaking beer bottles in the Cumberland Farms parking lot.
That's kind of like saying you can outlaw the bible but it's okay because Christians and atheists are both 'equally forbidden' to read it.
Pot has nothing to do with dignity or insight. All you stoners out there who think you're enlightened - you aren't much different than the punk breaking beer bottles in the Cumberland Farms parking lot.
33
What about me? I am against legalizing pot but completely in favor of marriage equality, and I'll explain my reasoning now. If my son is gay then I definitely want him to be able to marry whomever he ends up falling in love with, and I certainly hope he would find "Mr Right" and be eternally happy, with all the tax breaks we give to people who claim to be eternally happy. But I do NOT want my son smoking pot, legal or not, and I would hope that maybe the risk of prosecution, huge fines, and maybe imprisonment would deter him from it. I know it's a cliche, and you all know lots of exceptions to it, but without fail the people I've known who smoke pot don't do much of anything else. They sit on their butts on the floor (not even the couch) and play video games and eat just about anything crunchy from a crinkly foil bag. (Doritos, Cheetos, just about anything guaranteed to turn the pads of fingers and then the game controller orange.) I would actually prefer that my kid go out and become a clear-minded member of society. Yes, pot is non-lethal and all, but it's not really known for increasing ambition or productivity. I suppose it relaxes you after a hard day at work, but I tend to equate being stoned with being drunk and I wouldn't want my kids to be binge-drinkers either.
Aside from that, , would it be possible, were pot to be legalized and regulated and all that, to pre-determine strength? The same way you can read the booze label and know the proof, I mean. You can slowly sip your wine or beer to ensure you don't get overly intoxicated, but how could you do that with pot?
Aside from that, , would it be possible, were pot to be legalized and regulated and all that, to pre-determine strength? The same way you can read the booze label and know the proof, I mean. You can slowly sip your wine or beer to ensure you don't get overly intoxicated, but how could you do that with pot?
35
@33:
Absolutely, the amount of THC (the active ingredient in pot) can be measured and "tweaked." Just like with tobacco and booze.
It could be done several different ways: GMO crops bred for less THC, "cutting" the final product with an inert substance, or raising the temperature for a brief time, in effect "boiling" away some of the THC from the final product (THC burns away at a lower temp than the rest of the plant).
Absolutely, the amount of THC (the active ingredient in pot) can be measured and "tweaked." Just like with tobacco and booze.
It could be done several different ways: GMO crops bred for less THC, "cutting" the final product with an inert substance, or raising the temperature for a brief time, in effect "boiling" away some of the THC from the final product (THC burns away at a lower temp than the rest of the plant).
36
Also, the way THC works on the brain is not like other drugs like opiates or alcohol. Once your synapses are soaked in the stuff, they simply shut down, and no matter how much more is in the bloodstream, you aren't going to get any more benefits.
The only thing left is to keep increasing the amount in the bloodstream until toxicity kills the body, and that amount is approximately 40,000 times the amount required to get high. So good luck with that. Hee!
The only thing left is to keep increasing the amount in the bloodstream until toxicity kills the body, and that amount is approximately 40,000 times the amount required to get high. So good luck with that. Hee!
38
# 36 Part of what you say is correct. Smoked cannabis works on the limbic system, not the central nervous system. But, you simply cannot overdose on cannabis, there is no toxic level. That makes it the safest drug, controlled or not, that we have. Even water has a fatal dosage level. Aspirin kills 76,000 each year. By the way, there are over 60 active cannabinoids in cannabis - THC is only one of them.
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