The campaign manager for the group that put same-sex marriage back on the ballot in Maine believes additional organizing time will lead to a victory for gay marriage supporters come November.
Mainers voted against a state law that would have legalized gay marriage three years ago during the midterm elections, but Mainers United for Marriage successfully petitioned to add a question legalizing same-sex marriage to the Nov. 6 ballot.
Matt McTighe, campaign manager for Mainers United for Marriage, told MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts that those three years gave his group enough time to convince the state's 900,000-plus registered voters to vote the other way this time.
“The biggest difference quite frankly is time,” he said. “We’ve had so much time to continue what we started. In 2009, Maine came closer than any state previously had—we came within 30,000 votes of winning at the ballot—but that was 2009, and right from the day after election day we just picked up right where we had started continued the work.”
McTighe said it just had its 100,000 conversation with voters this week. Those conversations are “the central tenant” to the group’s campaign to educate Mainers on the proposal and to change minds.
The odds are not stacked in McTighe’s favor. In the 32 states where gay marriage has been put to the voters, it has failed. As MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has pointed out repeatedly, when you ask for a majority vote on minority rights, “generally minorities do not fare well.”
Opponents to gay marriage in Maine profess equal confidence despite being outgunned in the fundraising game. "I'll be surprised if we don't win," Carroll Conley Jr., executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, one of the leading opposing groups, told The New York Times.
However, public opinion has been shifting toward accepting gay marriage as an option in the last year, and several recent polls on Maine voters showed a majority favoring gay marriage.
Mainers United for Marriage is banking on that public opinion shift, along with its activist campaign. The group recently exceeded its goal to raise $100,000 in order to receive a matching donation from Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook and the current editor-in-chief of The New Republic, and his fiancé Sean Eldridge.
Voter turnout could play a role, too. Maine had the second highest voter turnout rate—70.8%—during the last presidential election. The national turnout was 58%. During the midterms it remained high at around 50% in Maine (though reflecting the typically lower non-presidential year turnout ), but this did not help gay marriage advocates as some had hoped at the time.
The wording of the ballot question is also in question. Mainers United for Marriage would like to see language that spells out the fact that no clergy member would be forced against their beliefs to marry gay couples. The Secretary of State is expected to rule on wording of the question in July.
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the antis talk about their successes at the ballot box
the antis talked about their successes during segregation and outlawing inter-racial marriage, which they justified as supporting the sanctity of the white race.
Things change - much too slowly
As for the catholic church so opposed to gays having equal rights re civil marriage, in Germany in the 1930s inter - religiioius marriage was illegal if one of the parties was gay
And Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Mengele and Eichmann were all catholics. Maybe part of their hate came from the church that demonized Jews as christ killers for a milenia.
And the final straw - In 2009 the german pope, his church dying in Europe and latin america etc - I guess he needed the money -
He UNexcommunciated a bishop williamson, a holocaust denier, who had 600,000 followers
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-26/world/pope.holocaust.denial_1_bishop-richard-williamson-bishop-bernard-fellay-holocaust-denier?_s=PM:WORLD
BTW try these links - what do we do with mass Kidnappers??????????
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2049647/BBC-documentary-exposes-50-year-scandal-baby-trafficking-Catholic-church-Spain.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqPIh-267fg&feature=player_embedded
Marriage is marriage is marriage. Opposite sex couples get married and they have a "marriage" certificate. Likewise, when same sex couples get married they have a "marriage" certificate. There is no such thing as "gay" marriage; there is only marriage and in some countries and US states same sex couples have finally been extended the civil right of marriage. They do not get "gay" married, they get married, just as hetero couples do. It is a huge disservice in the part of the media to refer to "gay" marriage when the issue is having access to each state's existing civil marriage. Maybe is is easier to say "gay" marriage, but it is misleading.
tks - when we get there we will have reached the promised land.
No one should give a darn about who is gay or str8 and gays should not need to hide thiier secualtiy.
The only time being gay should matter is when your trying to fix up a friend and need to get the right gender.
BTw a couple of phobes have asked me if I was gay since I support them and devote much of my time to the issue of equal legal marriage rights (not rites, which is the biz of the churches to do as they please)
but I' have simply answered to the phobes "I wish I was gay". their reaction reminds me of the movien - it think it was top gun, and the song..........take my breath away.
one of the phobes almost fainted.