Remember the Maine

Hey Kalamazoo, listen up!

While your city council was deciding that it's okay to treat the LGBT community like crap, by denying us jobs, or firing us from our jobs, simply because we're gay...by denying us housing because we're gay...by denying us public accommodation simply because we're gay, the good folks up in Maine are open to discussion about gay marriage.

That's right Kalamazoo, and you too Indiana, gay marriage.

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From the Bangor Daily News (http://www.bangornews.com/detail/97060.html):

Gay rights groups unveil marriage bill

by Judy Harrison BDN StaffAUGUSTA, Maine — A state senator from Hancock County is sponsoring a bill to allow gay couples to marry in Maine.
Sen. Dennis S. Damon, D-Trenton, announced at a press conference this afternoon that he is submitting legislation that would redefine marriage.
He was supported by members of the Maine Freedom to Marry Coalition made up of the Equality Maine, the Maine Civil Liberties Union, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders and the Maine Women’s Lobby.
Damon also was flanked by same-sex couples that want to marry and obtain the same legal protections afforded men and women who tie the knot in Maine.
Additional Maine couples who want to get married are profiled in a video.
The senator said that his bill would:
- codify civil marriage as the legally recognized union of two people.
- eliminate discrimination to allow any two eligible people, regardless of sex, to be issued an application for a marriage license.
- affirm religious freedom so that religious institutions continue to have control over their own religious doctrine and teachings regarding who may marry within each faith as set forth in the Maine and U.S. Constitutions.
- recognize lawful marriages from other states, removing a barrier akin to those enacted to prohibit mixed-race marriages a generation ago.
The Maine Marriage Alliance, a group that supports traditional marriage said it will submit a bill that would call for an amendment to the Maine Constitution that would define marriage as between a man and woman and ban same-sex marriage.

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See there, Kalamazoo, Indiana, Florida, California, Ariz-----oh the whole lot of you.

They want to recognize marriage as a union between two people. That isn't so hard, is it?

They want to make sure churches that don't believe in gay marriage aren't forced to perform gay marriage. Works for me, considering no one, NO ONE ANYWHERE, i s married until a state issued marriage certificate is filed. So, you see, people, we don't need a church to marry; we need state law to marry; separation of church and state working.

Maine wants to recognize marriages performed in other states. Sounds lovely, really, quite simple.

Of course there is a group trying to protect "traditional" marriage which we all know does not exist and has not existed for 5,000 years. Marriage has been in a constant state of flux since time began and people don't like change.

Change is coming though; and Maine is moving to the head of the line.

PS Ya'll: That picture up there, at the top of this post, yeah, that one. That's Victoria Eleftheriou (left) and Carla Hopkins (right) with their son Eli, 3 1/2 listening to Maine Sen. Dennis Damon during a press conference at the State House after Damon introduced legislation to legalize same-sex marriage in the state.

They look scary don't they.

Ooooooh. How bad would it be if "they" got married.

Sigh. How great it would be. How great.