The Bowdoin Orient

November 10, 2000
Volume CXXXII, Number 9

"Maine is not Vermont"--unfortunately

EDITORIAL

   For the most part, when we attempt to make moral and intellectual extrapolations from voting results we stand on the shoddiest of rhetorical platforms.
   The 48 percent of Americans who voted for Bush, for example, are not necessarily evil or stupid. Yet, there are those rare occasions when the November results do encourage us to draw some rather clear evaluations of the moral and intellectual portraits of the people behind the votes.
   50.8 percent of Maine voters, 314,144 individuals, voted against referendum Question 6, which would have ensured equal rights for all Maine citizens, regardless of sexual orientation. For the second time in recent years Mainers had the opportunity to conclusively affirm a belief in basic human rights.
   Though gay rights were rejected by a narrow margin, the fact that any Mainers--let alone a majority--can be fooled by bigoted religious dogma and fallacious arguments about "special rights," is no less unsettling. Unsurprisingly, the Bangor Daily News reports that exit polling found that voters with more education were generally more likely to favor the measure, while the greatest opponents of the referendum were high income males. 70 percent of those Mainers polled who voted for Bush also voted against the referendum; half that percent of Democrats voted "No" on Question six.
    Michael Heath of the Maine Christian Civic League was elated, but surprised by the results. He crowed: "[Mainers] looked at the Boy Scout problem, the same sex marriage law in Vermont. They saw the broad agenda of gay rights supporters. This was the second time it has been defeated and that should be the end of it." Heath is correct on one account. This is, as Governor King has commented, likely to be the last attempt to bring gay rights legislation before Mainers for several more years.
   Anti-gay rights groups campaigned under the slogan "Maine is not Vermont." How unfortunate for homosexual and heterosexual Mainers alike, that in this instance we are not. Let us hope that the old adage, as Maine goes so does the nation, does not hold true for human rights.