Marriage Equality Comes to Maine
Good news from Maine and a nice statement by Governor John Baldacci:
“In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions,” Baldacci said in a written statement. “I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.”
I think the civil unions fudge is very appealing to a lot of fair-minded but cautious politicians. Ultimately, however, it doesn’t make a ton of sense. If you want to be fair-minded, then you should do the fair thing.
Meanwhile, note that the purported “backlash effect” against judge-driven steps to marriage equality is never to be found. Instead, different paths to the same goal work in tandem. Political institutions and political circumstances are different in different jurisdictions. It’s very smart of equality advocates to press forward through the different plausible routes available to them.
21 Responses to “Marriage Equality Comes to Maine”
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May 6th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Meanwhile, note that the purported “backlash effect” against judge-driven steps to marriage equality is never to be found.
What do you mean here? What about California and Prop 8?
May 6th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
One of the most interesting developments has been using religious exemption amendments as a compromise position, instead of civil unions. In many ways I think the two ways of “compromising” are based on similar premises about what makes a lot of people initially balk at the idea of a gay marriage law (heck, even NOM in its own way reflects this understanding), but the religious-exemption approach is sounder from a constitutional perspective.
By the way, the “gay marriage Mecca” argument also has to be losing a lot of steam these days.
May 6th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
This movement needs sustained. Once we get to 50 states Joe the Plumber will have nowhere to hide his children. I love a good plan! Ha, ha, ha! Arghh!
May 6th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Instead of being “married” you’ll be “butt buddies.”
May 6th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
the religious-exemption approach is sounder from a constitutional perspective.
Ultimately, opponents of gay marriage were left grasping for something — anything — that they could use to galvinize opposition to it from the public. All they got left with was the (dishonest) claim that “churches will be forced to perform gay marriages!” (even though they’re not forced to perform inter-religious marriages, which are also allowed by law). So the legislators just called their bluff, added the extraneous exemption, and the opponents ended up running out of arguments.
May 6th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Congrats, Maine.
Anyone know anything about whether Lynch will sign the bill in New Hampshire?
May 6th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
President Obama still has time to get out in front of this before it’s history (say, make a badass speech about repealing DADT), but time’s running out. Fast.
May 6th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
“I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.”
Translation: I was too scared to advocate the right thing before, and now that the legislature has shown that I shouldn’t be scared, I’m going to do the right thing.
What a coward.
(That’s not to say that other politicians are likewise cowardly. Matthew uses the word “cautious”, whereas I would use the word “cowardly” – but otherwise Matthew is right on.)
May 6th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
So the legislators just called their bluff, added the extraneous exemption, and the opponents ended up running out of arguments.
Yep.
President Obama still has time to get out in front of this before it’s history . . .
Personally, I wouldn’t want Obama intervening at this point, since nationalizing the issue may well slow things down.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Awesome.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
What do you mean here? What about California and Prop 8?
It’s not clear that Prop 8 reflected any kind of backlash so much as a policy position that was only supported by 49% of the electorate. That number seems to be growing, so the future looks promising.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Personally, I wouldn’t want Obama intervening at this point, since nationalizing the issue may well slow things down.
One way or other, DTM, I think the issue will nationalize itself. By the year’s end there will be hundreds – maybe thousands – of fully-legal newlywed couples running headlong into the 1,138 federal legal protections and rights that still exclude them.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
By the year’s end there will be hundreds – maybe thousands – of fully-legal newlywed couples running headlong into the 1,138 federal legal protections and rights that still exclude them.
That is a fair point, but of course that issue really doesn’t involve the civil unions versus marriage dispute.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Yeah, Prop 8 didn’t really have anything to do with a backlash over judicial activism. It was issue that public opinion was roughly split in half over already, the Mormons pumped tons of money into it and the other side ran a really incompetent campaign, and it narrowly won. My guess is that it wouldn’t pass now or at any point in the future. This is a lot more like interracial marriage than abortion; it’s just going to keep gaining support until it’s just considered the consensus opinion except among evangelicals.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
President Obama still has time to get out in front of this before it’s history (say, make a badass speech about repealing DADT), but time’s running out. Fast.
Yeah, if he first ran in 2012 instead of 2008 I’m sure he would be in favor of it. He made a choice to avoid if at all possible the culture wars, and from a pragmatic perspective I think that was the right call since that’s the only way Republicans were winning national elections.
That being said I find it highly likely he’ll be the last Democratic presidential nominee ever to not support gay marriage.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
I choose to believe that my governor — who has shown a good deal of political courage in such areas as health care, taxation, and environmental protection — is speaking the simple truth here. He used to look at this issue in a certain way, but he’s changed his mind.
I know I personally have changed my mind many times, on this issue and hundreds of others. (As a gay man, I once felt like this whole marriage issue was a huge distraction.)
One could equally argue that WE have changed the governor’s mind, by the powerful and persuasive testimony presented not only to the Maine legislature but also to the legislature in nearby Vermont. Baldacci is a thoughtful and fair-minded man (and at the same time very much a “traditional-values” Italian-Catholic). As such, I think his shifting views on this issue are reflective of the “tipping-point” phenomenon that others have commented upon.
May 6th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Well, at least Al is merely taking potshots at Governor Baldacci for not being brave enough to support marriage equality even earlier. When I clicked through to comments, I half-expected he or another troll to claim it’s “legislative activism” unless passed by a public referendum… in which only marriage equality opponents can participate… in a month beginning with the letter “R.” (Roughly paraphrasing their ever-evolving spin on, e.g., the Vermont veto override.)
May 6th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
It is absurdly easy to get propositions on the ballot in CA. You need signatures representing just 5% of the turnout (8% for constitutional amendments) in the last gubernatorial election. The 2006 gubernatorial election had less than 40% turnout, so barely more than 3% of the electorate needed to sign the petition for Prop 8.
This is how we get ballot measures like Prop 163, in 1992, which exempted candy and snack foods from state sales tax (it passed), and Prop 6, in 1998, which criminalized the sale of horse meat for human consumption (it also passed). If I recall correctly, the chief argument for Prop 6 was, “Horses are majestic animals,” and the chief argument against was, “If horse meat is criminalized, only criminals will eat horse meat.”
May 6th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
“Meanwhile, note that the purported “backlash effect” against judge-driven steps to marriage equality is never to be found. Instead, different paths to the same goal work in tandem.”
Well except for that little 1/6 of the United States known as California.
“It’s not clear that Prop 8 reflected any kind of backlash so much as a policy position that was only supported by 49% of the electorate. That number seems to be growing, so the future looks promising.”
I’m pro-gay-marriage but this seems like denial more than analysis. There wasn’t a CA Constitutional rule against gay marriage before. Now there is. This CA Constitutional rule was set up directly in opposition to a CA Supreme Court ruling to the contrary. It wouldn’t have existed except in response to that ruling.
The future does look promising in the long run, but that is despite the court action, not because of it.
“Political institutions and political circumstances are different in different jurisdictions. It’s very smart of equality advocates to press forward through the different plausible routes available to them.”
Well that is true if you think that all institutions have equal legitmacy in creating new policies.
About 49% of people seem to think that torture is ok. And the trend line has been more pro-torture of late. Can the Administration just enact that, or should it consult the legislature? If the Administration can find a couple of judges to sign off on it, will that be ok with you?
May 6th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
That is a fair point, but of course that issue really doesn’t involve the civil unions versus marriage dispute.
Actually it’s a huge distinction. Federal policy has no provision for recognizing “domestic partnerships” or “civil unions,” for same-sex or “opposite” couples. So in the states that provide for them (including post-Prop 8 California) there is still very little legal basis to assert a claim that it is equivalent to marriage at a federal level.
However, when same-sex marriages are both nominally and legally equal to hetero ones at the state level, the US no longer has a convenient rhetorical escape button. It’s a logistic impossibility for couples to be married in some ways but not others, in some states but not others. Obama would be well-advised to stay ahead of the curve on this and take a firm position on fully recognizing all same-sex marriages performed in the states that now allow them, although it will probably take a major Supreme Court decision a la Lawrence v. Texas to bring the states with gay-marriage bans into line.
May 7th, 2009 at 1:40 am
I’m pro-gay-marriage but this seems like denial more than analysis. There wasn’t a CA Constitutional rule against gay marriage before. Now there is. This CA Constitutional rule was set up directly in opposition to a CA Supreme Court ruling to the contrary. It wouldn’t have existed except in response to that ruling.
Since the constitutional ruling has precisely the same effect as the legal rule struck down by the courts — both can be overturned by a simple majority in an initiative — this is silly. The status quo is no worse than it was. Except, of course, that it was entirely possible that the initiative could have failed. And, since this initiative got much less support than the previous one, it provides exactly no evidence of a backlash against “judicial activism.”