Gay Marriage Blocked on Maine Street?

The only good info I can get on the Maine elections comes from the excellent election page at the New York Times. The Maine state legislature, I gather, legalized same-sex marriage. Opponents got a referendum on this year's ballot: voting "yes" would repeal the law. Voting "no" would sustain the law.

Here is the current report from the NYTs page, with 64% reporting:

Yes/51.7%

No/48.3%

If those numbers hold, the people of Maine will have repealed the legalization of gay marriage.

I think this is unfortunate. I am opposed to the imposition of gay marriage by judicial fiat, as I do not believe that any valid constitutional principles require it. I am in favor of same sex marriage if it is enacted by legislatures and/or by initiative or referendum. I think it is true that, had Maine 1 been defeated, it would have been the first time that the people of a state voted to endorse a same sex marriage law.

We probably won't know until tomorrow which way the wind blew. I think the people of Maine should have confirmed the same sex marriage law. But I don't mistake my opinions for constitutional mandates. This is a question properly decided by state legislatures or by the people of a state. If the people of Maryland decide against gay marriage, that is their decision to make.

Comments

[lexrex]

kb, why do you think they should've confirmed gay marriage?

[Ann Trudo]

God has a plan ...Adam and /Eve...NOT ADAM and STEVE.

[lexrex]

that's too much absolute truth, ann. relativism rules our nation, don'tcha know.

[KB]

Ann: I do not presume to know God's plans. Even if I did, I am not sure my knowledge would translate into social policy.

Lex: Like a lot of human institutions, marriage has a range of functions. The fundamental one is child rearing: marriage is necessary because men do not know who their children are. Marriage encourages males to invest in their offspring, something that is a problem across a range of species. But marriage also protects childless couples and gives their partnership certain recognition rights.

If two men have lived together in a loving relationship for a long time, and one of them lands in the hospital, I think it common decency to give the other the same set of rights as a spouse would have. Also, there is at least a chance that same sex marriage, backing by social sanctions, would discourage male homosexual promiscuity. I have my doubts, but its worth a try.

At any rate, I cannot see any convincing reason not to extend marriage to same sex couples. As long as we recognize that marriage is a set of mutual obligations, such an extension might even strengthen the institution. In this case, I think social conservatives would be better off to switch rather than fight.

[lexrex]

if your concern is about child-rearing, then it seems that gay marriage would be one of the worst ideas. clearly, children do best in a family headed by a mother and a father. a kid needs to be surrounded by those male-female role models.

even childless marriages help strengthen children, who are not their own.

if two men want to visit each other in a hospital, they can already arrange that. besides, that is an almost non-existent problem.

and if you think it'll dissuade promiscuity, i have my doubts. marriage -- and "marriage is and always has been defined in common law as a covenant between a man and a woman -- has enough trouble dissuading hetero promiscuity. how much more trouble dissuading homo promiscuity?

granting marriage rights to homosexuals would be like printing counterfeit dollars and passing them off as legit. it will only devalue the dollar, or in this case marriage.

besides, are you saying that we are smarter today than all the societies of the past, in regard to gay marriage? the only societies that accepted gay relationships imploded. from the beginning of time, heterosexuality was the norm, physiologically, morally, and socially speaking. have we americans become so "enlightened," that we think we know better than our forefathers?

and to bring this to a moral dimension, are you asking social conservatives to abandon their belief in God's Word, and accept what they believe to be wrong? you're not, are you?