If you're planning a trip to Vacationland this summer, be sure to bring your galoshes — the "gay storm" that's been satirized all over the Internet rolled into Maine last week, when Governor John Baldacci, a Democrat, signed into law a bill making Maine the fifth New England state to take steps toward same-sex marriage (Rhode Island being the holdout).
"I did not come to this decision lightly or in haste," Baldacci said about his relatively surprising decision to sign the bill. "In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions. 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."
The bill, An Act To End Discrimination in Civil Marriage and Affirm Religious Freedom, lifts Maine's prohibition on gay marriage (while re-establishing religious institutions' freedom to marry — or not marry — whomever they want). It was proposed by Democratic state senator Dennis Damon, and passed through the Senate 21-13 and the House 89-57; several prominent GLBT activists who worked on the marriage campaign in the Bay State (including Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders attorney Mary Bonauto) helped organize the efforts in Maine, and Massachusetts State Senator Marian Walsh testified at a day-long public hearing in Augusta. The law is scheduled to go into effect this September.
However — shocker! — same-sex marriage supporters had little time to celebrate. The very day that Baldacci put pen to paper, gay-marriage opponents (led by the Roman Catholic diocese and a group calling itself the Maine Marriage Coalition) announced their intention to put the matter before Maine voters in either 2009 or 2010. They need to collect 55,087 votes to put a "People's Veto" on the ballot, a goal they are confident they can attain. If they manage to do so, gay marriage in Maine will stall until the issue is decided by the public.
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- Instead of cuts: guts
Let’s assume, reader, that you’re concerned about economic and social justice. For those in real need — people who are poor, sick, old, mentally ill, addicted, disabled — you want decent care. You’re concerned, too, about proper funding of schools, community colleges, and university campuses.
- Smoke Local
Lobsters, blueberries, potatoes, and . . . pot? As Maine's medical-marijuana program inches closer to business-as-usual, weed is on the verge of becoming a meaningful part of the state's economy — a budding piece of Maine's local, sustainable, pro-agriculture aesthetic.
- Maine's donkey party loves the rich and the poor — but can't protect both
In the current legislative fight over Republican Governor Paul LePage's lust to slash Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) programs because of a $221-million shortfall in its budget, Democrats say over and over that they want to protect the poor, sick, and disabled people from whom the governor wants to withdraw state assistance.
- Mean everything to nothing
My favorite movie-advertising phrase is "based on a true story." Translated into English, it means: "more or less, a big fat lie."
- Losing our religion
All those pretty churches. So many of them white clapboard buildings with tall steeples and stained glass windows. The kind of thing that makes you think Mainers are a hardy, God-fearing, churchgoing lot.
- Good starts
It's a new year, and Maine journalism is worse for the battering it took in 2009. But there are some new lights appearing on the horizon that might just make things a little brighter.
- Starting to clear Maine’s broadband backlog
The biggest obstacle between Mainers and more, better, faster broadband Internet access is actually a very basic one: there's a lack of information about what kind of Internet service is already available where.
- Get smart
There are lots of theories about what's wrong with Maine's economy.
- Exploring deep within
Hannah Holmes, the Maine-born, Portland-dwelling science writer, naturalist, and friend to all animals has turned her lens deeply inward in her latest book, The Well-Dressed Ape: A Natural History of Myself .
- Teach a woman to fish...she'll never want to leave
The cluster of small shacks that comprise Jim's Smelt Camp in Bowdoinham look like a tiny shantytown; were that it was so — I would move right in.
- Here it comes again
Is it possible to tax stupidity? If so, Maine could generate enough revenue to eliminate the income tax, property tax, excise tax, inheritance tax, and sales tax.
- Less
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