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AUGUSTA – The Maine Judiciary Committee heard more than 11 hours of testimony from ministers, lawyers, students, doctors, gay and lesbian couples as well as dozens of other Maine citizens to discuss two bills.
One of the bills would redefine marriage in Maine to include people of any gender, regardless of sexual identity. This would allow gay and lesbian couples in Maine to legally marry. The other bill, L.D. 1118, would expand domestic partnership benefits for gay couples.
Approximately 4,000 people sat in the Augusta Civic Center as community members testified in front of the committee – speaking in 30-minute intervals per side. Each person got three minutes to speak.
Opponents and proponents shared their stories – ranging from tales of love and legally unrecognized relationships to stories about a husband being left for another woman because she “decided … to be gay.” Many on the opposing side discussed religion, and most of the proponents talked about civil rights.
Orono’s state Rep. Emily Cain spoke on the bill. She said marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples was a main reason she ran for state office in 2004.
“The bill before you today does not create same-sex couples who love each other. It simply affirms under the law what already exists today,” Cain said at the start of the meeting.
Cain said she believed it was wrong for the majority to vote for the rights of a minority and encouraged the committee to pass the legislation. Cain does not want this to go to a people’s vote, saying civil rights in America were not achieved by referendum.
Although most of the crowd dressed in red, the color of support for the bills, University of Maine students wore mostly orange shirts at the hearing given during pride week.
The jumble of orange approached the “proponent” lectern. Samantha Hansen, the vice president of Wilde Stein, spoke to the committee.
“I’m only 19. Marriage isn’t something I spend a lot of time thinking about,” she said. “I don’t know if any of my gay and lesbian peers will ever be married. We are all here today because we are all discriminated against by the state of Maine.”
Hansen said excluding gays from marriage was similar to “excluding size 10s from the shoe store,” and said it needs to stop.
Sen. Dennis Damon, the sponsor of L.D. 1020 – which would grant marriage rights to gay and lesbians – came to the microphone and received a standing ovation and screams from the crowd.
“Today is one of the most meaningful days in my legislative career,” he said. Damon said he rarely gets the opportunity to introduce anti-discrimatory legislation and said it makes him feel both huge and tiny.
“Tiny because I am but one in this sea of change,” Damon said. “This bill allows two people to marry, any two people who are of legal age who love each other, who agree to care and support each other … any two people regardless of their gender or sexuality and they will be treated the same.”
Damon said the bill respects religious freedom.
“Simply put, this bill will allow people to live and let live,” Damon said.
Legislators opposing the bills included Maine Reps. Phillip Curtis, James Hamper, Paul Davis, David Burns and Douglas Thomas, who all spoke.
Rep. Leslie Fossel, the sponsor of L.D. 1118 – a bill that would expand domestic partnership benefits – did not attend.
Curtis said he opposed the bills because “if enacted into law [the legislation] will have a very negative impact on the families of the state of Maine, as we know it.”
He said the bills would have a “negative impact [on] education curriculum as we have known it for years,” and added that “classrooms of all ages will become gender neutral … taught at the tax payer’s expense that moms and dads no longer exist.”
Curtis’ last concern was that “we will become a society governed by man rather than a righteous, holy God.” He said these bills would divide Maine.
Hamper made a single statement against the bills, asking the committee: “What is the next domino to fall?”
Davis said, “When a man and a women come together they make children. This can never happen with gay couples. Never. It is impossible. Children must have the blending love of a mother and a father. To think otherwise is the pursuit of folly.” The state representative said that families are the foundation of our society and that “gay marriage will not create a strong society.”
Davis agreed with Cain, saying he did not want this legislation to go to a public vote, saying it would be a “squeamish way to let legislators off the hook.”
Speaker of the Maine House Hannah Pingree spoke for the bills.
“The time for incremental change is over. It is time we recognize all Maine people and all Maine families,” Pingree said. She said that the bill would not change anything religiously, that different religions could choose to recognize whomever they would like to and not to marry under their rules.
Following the introduction of the bills, the public took over the two lecterns.
A Civil Rights Question
Bob Talbot from NAACP in Bangor was in support of the bills. He told his story about his interracial marriage through the 1960s and ’70s.
“They said interracial marriage was against nature, sound familiar?”
Talbot said people told him it was wrong to marry outside of his race.
“People say the same thing now about homosexual couples. It was wrong 40 years ago, it is wrong now,” he said. “The heart does not care about race, color or sexual orientation.”
Gabriella Do Amaral, a high school student from Old Town, supported the bills. “I’m a young lesbian woman living in Maine,” she said. Do Amaral said although she possesses the same emotions as her friends, “there are stipulations based on my love.”
Do Amaral said, “When young people are constantly told that we don’t have the same rights as other people, it’s hard to feel a sense of belonging.” She said she would like to eventually marry and have children in Maine, but “for reasons of my identity, I won’t be treated equally.”
Jonathon Yellowbear testified against the bills, saying his wife of 10 years left him for another woman.
“I came home and caught them in the act, in a not so flattering way. I divorced her on the grounds of adultery,” Yellowbear said. He asked that the committee vote the bills down, “before someone else’s marriage ends in divorce because someone decided they had to be gay.”
Some people who testified for the bills compared gay marriage to the civil rights movement. This upset Kimberly Campbell, who spoke against the bills. She was offended that the proponents compared gay discrimination to racial discrimination.
“That [Civil Rights] movement did not protect behavior,” she said. Campbell spoke about how she could not hide her race in a job interview or elsewhere. “As a black female I can’t do that, my differences are apparent immediately.”
Duane Dumont said the bills, which are supposed to be anti-discriminatory, were in themselves discriminatory.
“Let the law state that if I want to marry two women or my sister or a chimp … that’s OK,” Dumont said. “If we redefine the definition of marriage we’re going to start changing it. … There are a lot of people out there who might want to marry their dog or cat.”
The Religious Arguments
Religious leaders for the proponents lined up against the front of the auditorium.
Rev. Mark Worth and approximately 60 other religious leaders approached the proponent microphone. Worth is a minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Castine who works for the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry in Maine.
“What unites us is our unwavering support for equal, legal marriage rights for same-sex couples,” Worth said. So far, he said 166 religious leaders have signed the group’s declaration of support for same-sex marriage.
“Good marriages benefit the entire community. Legal marriage promotes family stability and cohesiveness,” he said. “… Marriage promotes family values that should be available to all families, not just straight families.”
These religious testimonies upset some people on the opposition, including Daniel Campbell. He disagreed with the testimony of Worth and the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry in Maine.
“I’m very disappointed in some of the things I’ve heard from the clergy today.” As he spoke the crowd turned their backs to him. “I’ll turn and look at you. You will be responsible to God for your behavior. He [God] is watching.”
Daniel Campbell argued that being gay is a behavioral choice.
“I’m a fat guy. I see some of you guys are a little overweight yourself. There is something we can do about that, isn’t there? Homosexuality is a behaviorally defined condition,” Daniel Campbell said. “Marriage is marriage and homosexuality is behaviorally defined.”
Rev. Steve Young also spoke against the bills. He said gay people get sick more than straight people and this would cause an increased spending on healthcare. He said gay people and “our school children who will be force-fed propaganda” would be hurt by gay marriage. He said Jesus taught only heterosexual marriage and said “homosexual activity is vile.” He referred to gay and lesbian partners as “roommates” and described his repulsion at gay intimacy.
The Needs of a Child
Both sides brought up scientific arguments.
Margaret Yates identified herself as a nurse in Maine when she testified against the bills.
“I have experience in public health and I’ve seen the effects of children who are raised outside of a traditional marriage,” she said.
“To intentionally create motherless or fatherless children” does not meet the needs of the child.
“There are questions on their [child's] gender identify and of the female/male role definitions,” Yates said. “Each child is entitled to their identity and the bonding care of the mother and father.”
Proponents included a pediatrician and a psychologist.
Daniel Summers, a pediatrician said, “Children raised by gay and lesbian couples do not differ from those of heterosexual parents.”
David Lilly, the president-elect of the Maine Psychological Association said there are no significant differences between gay and straight relationships. He cited the American Psychological Association and said, “there is not scientific evidence that parental effectiveness is different between gay and straight parents.”
Time was allotted for people neither for nor against the bills.
Mark Henkel of Old Orchard Beach spoke for polygamists. He said divorce “proves our society’s sickness” and that “marriage control is as anti-freedom as gospel control.”
“If Heather can have two mommies, why can’t she have two mommies and a daddy?” Henkel asked.
An Extended Discussion
The meeting was interrupted for a few minutes when burnt popcorn triggered a fire alarm and everyone evacuated.
When the clock reached 8 p.m. and approximately 20 people were still lined up on both sides to give testimony the committee members passed notes back and forth. Sen. Lawrence Bliss, the senate chair, told the audience that the notes were to confirm that the committee would stay to listen to the testimonies of the people still in two lines – one for opponents, one for proponents – waiting to speak. Each of those people got one minute, as opposed to the three minutes allotted to people who spoke before 8 p.m.
The Judiciary Committee will meet Tuesday, April 28 for a work session on these bills.
Related Posts:- Video: State debates gay marriage (April 23, 2009)
- Gay marriage bill sponsor speaks at UM (April 27, 2009)
- Mainers to speak on gay marriage bill April 22 (April 20, 2009)
- Opinion: Gay marriage would make society ‘a more peaceful, healthy place’ for everyone (November 13, 2008)
- Gay marriage is required by the Bible and the Constitution (March 27, 2008)
