Well that hurt.
There's just no two ways around it--losing in Maine yesterday really hurt.
I was so hopeful going into this vote. Most polls showed this being a close vote and in the end it was about 53%-47%. Obviously Maine is a different state in a lot of ways, but it's interesting that the results were almost identical to our loss here in California a year ago with Prop 8 (in San Francisco, BTW, the results a year ago were 75% against Prop & only 25% supporting inequality).
The loss certainly hurts, but if we had a little over 3% more of the vote we would've won.
Yes, we came up short, but we're going to bounce back from this. After we lost Prop 8 here last year we took a deep breath to regroup and I think it would be helpful to do the same here to come out even stronger. I'd love to hear other people's opinions about what our next step should be. We've been focusing a lot on individual states. Maybe that's the best strategy or maybe it's not. Should we be focusing more than we currently are on repealing the Defense of Marriage Act?
Of all the things I've read in response to yesterday's loss, this was the most motivating for me:
Frank Schubert, the organizer for the campaign to repeal gay marriage, said a victory by his side would be a "backbreaking loss" for gay-rights activists.
Are you kidding me, Frank? "Backbreaking"? That's a joke. This fight has only just begun and our backs can't be broken. You can't break the unrelenting drive Americans have for equality. We didn't get the result we wanted yesterday, but we're stronger as a result of the heroic effort of thousands of our brothers and sisters on the ground in Maine and across America.
In the meantime, we're going to keep talking to friends, family and strangers about the importance of marriage equality; we're going to continue to speak out whenever we hear an anti-gay slur; we're going to keep giving money to important gay rights non-profits doing such important work. And we're going to continue fighting for equality until we get that extra 3% that'll start putting us over the top in these elections.
My sincere thanks to everyone that worked so hard for so long inside and outside of Maine. From here in San Francisco I reach out and shake your hand in support of our fight for equality.