Maine Becomes the 5th State to Allow Same-Sex Marriage
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
AUGUSTA, Maine—Maine's governor signed a freshly passed bill Wednesday approving gay marriage, making it the fifth state to approve the practice.
Legislators in nearby New Hampshire were also poised to send a gay marriage bill to their governor, who hasn't indicated whether he'll sign it.
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.
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.
Debate was brief. Senate President Elizabeth Mitchell turned the gavel over to an openly gay member, fellow Democrat Sen. Lawrence Bliss, to preside over the final vote.
Republican Sen. Debra Plowman argued that the bill was being passed "at the expense of the people of faith."
But Senate Majority Leader Philip Bartlett II said the bill does not compel religious institutions to recognize gay marriage.
"We respect religious liberties.... This is long overdue," said Bartlett, a Democrat.
Maine is now the fourth state in the northeastern New England region to allow same-sex marriages. Connecticut enacted a bill after being ordered to allow gay marriages by the courts, and Vermont passed a bill over the governor's veto. Same-sex marriage is also legal in the Midwestern state of Iowa.
The state House in New Hampshire, also in New England, was also expected to vote on a bill Wednesday and send it to Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat.
If New Hampshire allows gay marriage, Rhode Island would the New England holdout. A bill to legalize same-sex marriage in Rhode Island has been introduced but is not expected to pass this year.
Same-sex marriage was briefly legal in California before voters banned it last year.
Reader Comments
I Don't See why this is important to others than gay people
Why all the hatred, even to the point of lying?
Churches do not have to marry gays.
Everyone knows that there are more straight pedophiles than gay pedophiles. That is a problem of humanity and not a specific orientation.
We are a country that prides itself in diversity of religious belief or non-belief. Surely one group respects our freedoms enough not to wish to impose its will on the rest.
I thought that it makes for a more stable society when people team up in family groups instead of running around with a number of people in the community.
Besides, God made people all along the sexual spectrum. I know women who say they are bi. Who cares? I wish them happiness.
I could never see a controversy about this, even when young. People are what they are. So long as they harm no one, why should I meddle?
This is so much to do over nothing.
Why are we stopping here?
Why just 2 people and why just "people?"
The country is changing on this issue
Gay marriage may not be to everyone's liking. Neither was the abolishment of slavery, the military draft (and its END), the repeal of Prohibition and racial integration of the military and the schools.
But the assertion by a legislator above that this is being done "at the expense of people of faith" is pure baloney. Faith is this: If you don't believe in same sex marriage, then don't enter into one. But smugly pretending moral superiority at church to a minority class of people is not a matter of "faith". It's something else entirely, and not something good.
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