Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 | Posted by Editor

Maine voters say no to “gay marriage”

Maine voters voted against a law allowing same-sex couples to marry, as officials counted ballots late into Tuesday night in a referendum that saw unexpectedly high turnout.

A majority of Maine voters, around 53 percent, are in favor of repealing a law that authorizes “same-sex marriage”.

With this vote, Maine joins more than 30 other states in the United States of America that have freely and democratically rejected gay and lesbian marriage at the ballot box.

Back in May, the activist legislators from Maine passed a bill to allow same-sex marriage, but defenders of traditional marriage mobilized and asked for a referendum to repeal the law.

On this issue, the referendum asked voters: “Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious groups to refuse to perform these marriages?”

The majority of voters in Maine responded “Yes”, that is, they voted to reject gay marriage.

Rolling back the law is clearly a setback for those advocates of “gay-rights” and makes Maine the third state in which residents reversed their judiciary or government’s decision to permit “gay marriages,” after California and Hawaii.

Same-sex marriage has yet to win a popular vote in any state, despite a recent string of legislative and activist judicial wins in the New England region.

The other states that grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples — Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, and Vermont — have done so via legislative vote or activist judicial ruling, and New Hampshire will grant such marriages starting in January after a vote by its activist legislature, not by a referendum.

The U.S. federal government and most other states do not recognize same-sex marriages.

Until now, Maine was granting domestic-partnership status to same-sex couples, along with about seven other states.

Maine’s legislature voted in May to allow gays to marry each other, but an opposition petition campaign led the measure’s implementation to be delayed and submitted to a popular referendum Tuesday.

This vote against gay-marriage is really important as it marks the first time voters have torpedoed a gay-marriage law enacted by a legislature.

When Californians rejected same-sex marriage, it was in response to a court ruling, not legislation.

The Americano / Agencies

Maine voters voted against a law allowing same-sex couples to marry, as officials counted ballots late into Tuesday night in a referendum that saw unexpectedly high turnout.