{"id":7630,"date":"2009-05-06T10:04:30","date_gmt":"2009-05-06T17:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=7630"},"modified":"2009-05-06T10:04:30","modified_gmt":"2009-05-06T17:24:18","slug":"maine-becomes-fifth-state-to-end-gay-lesbian-couples-exclusion-from-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=7630","title":{"rendered":"Maine Becomes Fifth State To End Gay & Lesbian Couples' Exclusion From Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

From The AP<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Maine’s governor signed a freshly passed bill Wednesday approving gay marriage, making it the fifth state to approve the practice and moving New England closer to allowing it throughout the region.<\/p>\n

New Hampshire legislators were also poised to send a gay marriage bill to their governor, who hasn’t indicated whether he’ll sign it. If he does, Rhode Island would be the region’s sole holdout.<\/p>\n

The Maine Senate voted 21-13, with one absent, for a bill that authorizes marriage between any two people rather than between one man and one woman, as state law currently allows. The House had passed the bill Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Democratic Gov. John Baldacci, who hadn’t previously indicated how he would handle the bill, signed it shortly afterward. In the past, he said he opposed gay marriage but supported civil unions, which provide many benefits of marriage.<\/p>\n

Debate was brief. Senate President Elizabeth Mitchell, D-Vassalboro, turned the gavel over to an openly gay member, Sen. Lawrence Bliss, D-South Portland, to preside over the final vote.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Despite the temporary loss of California, this has been a good year for same-sex marriage equality. I swiped the “end the exclusion” title language from Freedom To Marry<\/a>; that seems like a good way to put it.<\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/strong> As David reminds us<\/a>, there is probably going to be a ballot fight over this — but maybe it’s one we can win.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 2:<\/strong> The current message on the front page of the Maine Family Policy Council<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Maine’s Legislature will eliminate civil marriage by the end of May. We have started a People’s Veto. Please pray that God will intervene. He is our best hope. God has not forgotten about Maine. Even though things seem grim He may yet be gracious toward us. Senator Dennis Damon wants to eliminate Maine’s Defense of Marriage Act. It was created by referendum in 1997. 60,000 Mainers signed petitions demanding that Marriage be protected. Now, 186 politicians in Augusta want to ignore the will of the people … again. Maine people twice rejected “gay” rights in the past decade. Homosexuality is very sad, and sinful. Maine must not create a culture that winks at something so debilitating on so many levels. To present this “orientation” as benign to impressionable children is the height of arrogance, and surely qualifies as evil.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From The AP: Maine’s governor signed a freshly passed bill Wednesday approving gay marriage, making it the fifth state to approve the practice and moving New England closer to allowing it throughout the region. New Hampshire legislators were also poised … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}