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Maine rejects gay marriage law

(Portland, Maine) Voters in Maine Tuesday voted by a narrow margin to repeal the state’s recently approved marriage equality law.

In a ballroom at a Holiday Inn in downtown Portland, “No on 1” campaign manager Jesse Connolly announced to a few hundred supporters still on hand at 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, that the campaign was not conceding defeat and would wait for all the ballots to be counted.

“This is a razor-thin election,” said Connolly, “…and every vote counts. We will not quit until we know where everyone of these votes lives. We won’t quit. We’ll be counting votes into tomorrow morning,.”

But estimates of the number of outstanding ballots to be counted appeared to fall far short of the number needed to overtake the “Yes” votes on the measure.

Numbers reported by the Bangor Daily News at about 12:45 a.m. eastern time showed 242,158 (52.47 percent) voted “Yes” to repeal the law, while 219,389 (47.53 percent voted “No” against repeal. With 80 percent of the votes having been counted, there would be less than 6,000 remaining to make up a vote difference of more than 22,000 votes.

The “Stand for Marriage Maine” group which led the effort to repeal the marriage equality law proclaimed victory.

The state’s Director of Elections, Melissa Packard, said her office would not report results publicly until they are certified –in about 20 days.
The apparent vote marks a significant defeat for marriage equality supporters, who were hoping to recover momentum lost last year when voters in California narrowly approved Proposition 8 to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage and undermine a court ruling that had enabled some 18,000 same-sex couples to marry in 2008.

The campaigns for and against Maine’s equal marriage law had been underway since May when the legislature passed, and the governor signed, the new law enabling same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses the same as straight couples. Ballot Question 1 asked voters if they would like to repeal that law.

Many political observers praised the “No on 1” organization for running a well-organized campaign, headed by Maine natives with considerable experience in Maine politics. Heading that campaign was Jesse Connolly, a 31-year-old straight married father, on leave from his job as Chief of Staff for the Maine Speaker of the House. Connolly also ran the successful 2005 campaign to vote “No” on a ballot measure seeking to repeal the state’s recently passed law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. The “No” vote that year won 55 percent to 45 percent.
The key focus of “No on 1” from the start was identifying voters who would vote “No” and making a concerted effort to get those voters to actually cast their ballots –either by absentee, early voting, or on election day. Activists from as far away as Hawaii came to Maine in the last days of the campaign to help with that basic door-to-door canvassing of voters.

Tambry Young, co-chair of the Family Equality Coalition of Hawaii, said she came to Maine last Wednesday because “at some point, we need to stand up and say, ‘We need to do the right thing.’”

But the Yes on campaign had considerable visibility throughout the state—with a heavy dose of television and radio ads warning that approval of same-sex marriage would lead to children being taught about gay marriage in the schools. The “Yes” campaign also had a plentiful supply of yard signs posted along many roads and streets throughout the state. In contrast, “No on 1” often had a lone pale green sign in a sea of yellow and blue “Yes” signs.

At one busy intersection in Portland Tuesday, five “Yes on 1” activists stood on the median and hoisted “Yes on 1” placards, yelling “Vote Yes on 1 –No Homosexuals!” The intersection was bathed in “Yes on 1” yard signs but only two “No on 1” hand-painted signs.”

On one occasion, a car zipped by and a woman yelled out the window, “I voted no!” But many cars honked and their drivers waved, seeming to signal agreement with the “Yes on 1” position.

Voter turnout was much heavier than expected. The Secretary of State had predicted about 25 to 35 percent of registered voters would turn out, but by midnight, the Daily News estimated at least 46 percent of registered voters had participated.

The vote in Maine was the dominant story for most election coverage on referenda around the country. Many political observers saw it as a political compass for which way the country’s mood was heading on equal marriage rights for gay couples.

Question 1 was one of seven ballot measures on an otherwise light ballot in Maine, with no major political offices up for grabs.

There was a tremendous push for last-minute funding in Maine. An email sent out at 10 o’clock on Monday morning asked for another $25,000 in donations to pay for television ads to counter the “Yes on 1” campaign’s last-minute television buy. “No on 1” supporters sent in $68,000 before the bank closed that day.

“Never did we think over 1,200 people would give a gift today,” said Jesse Connolly, campaign manager for the “No on 1” effort.
“I have never seen a campaign that has had this many volunteers from so many walks of life,” said Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Carey was in Maine Tuesday helping with the get-out-the-vote effort. She said her door-to-door team included an older straight woman from Portland and a young woman from New Hampshire.

Mary Bonauto, too, thanked straight allies “who made this fight their own.” Bonauto, who lives in Maine, was a key leader with Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders in winning legal battles for marriage equality.

“California was a wake-up call,” said Carey. “Many people became determined that if they had another opportunity to step up, they would step up and Maine has been that opportunity.”

But the latest ad by the “Yes on 1” group appeared to hit its mark. It flipped through a number of newspaper clippings and official-looking documents at a rapid-fire pace while a female voice urgently warned that gay activists “are already pushing their agenda in Maine schools.” A radio ad warned that gay activists and their supporters will “push it on students.” The message was essentially a copycat of a message that had been effective in passing Proposition 8.

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