Gay marriage: Have the people spoken?

“If not in Maine, then where?” asked the Los Angeles Times in an editorial. Gay-rights advocates were expecting to be celebrating last week when voters in that overwhelmingly Democratic, “live and let live” state took up a referendum on gay marriage. Unlike the 30 states in which voters previously rejected gay marriage, Maine’s legislature itself—and not a court—had voted to make it legal. But in the end, gay marriage in Maine was overturned by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent. While Washington state voters last week approved domestic-partnership rights for gays, the results in Maine show that the fight for full equality for gays “will be more difficult, more complicated, and probably will take a good while longer than it should.”

Why do you suppose that is? asked Kathryn Jean Lopez in National Review Online. Gay-marriage advocates have a ready answer, of course—“bigotry.” But the truth is, most Americans—even in “blue” states like California and, now, Maine—simply do not believe “there is a civil right for a man to marry a man or a woman to marry a woman.” Yes, many of us “know and love people who have same-sex feelings,” but that doesn’t mean we must abandon our values about traditional marriage’s place “at the core of human civilization.” Liberal elites tend to downplay how “revolutionary” gay marriage truly is, said Rod Dreher in The Dallas Morning News. Until just a few years ago, same-sex marriage “was inconceivable outside a small radical fringe.” And while judges have now imposed it on a few U.S. states, “the vast majority of humankind still finds it unthinkable.”

And yet, “time is on the side of marriage equality,” said Carlos Ball in Huffingtonpost.com. Polls consistently show that people under 30 overwhelmingly support gay marriage. In Massachusetts and other places where gay marriage has become legal, support for same-sex nuptials has risen as people see for themselves that society doesn’t crumble when gay people are allowed to marry. So the fight goes on, said Andrew Sullivan in TheAtlantic.com. “The hard truth is, people are still afraid of this, and our opponents know how to target their fears.” In Maine, they argued that if gay marriage is deemed acceptable, kids will somehow be more likely to become gay themselves. They are right about one thing: This is about the kids. Gay or straight, “they need to know they have a future as a dignified human being with a family.”

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