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After hearing Mainers’ opinions on L.D. 1020 – the legislative bill that would re-define marriage to legally include gay couples – Sen. Dennis Damon came to the University of Maine April 23 to tell students why he sponsored it – despite at least one e-mailed death threat – and if he expects it to pass.
“I think that the [Maine Judiciary] Committee will report it out as an ought to pass … but I don’t know the strength of that vote,” Damon said.
Damon said he expects Gov. John Baldacci to sign the bill into law if the Maine Legislature approves it, even though Baldacci has not voiced any support or opposition.
“It’s going to be tight. I think the House will probably pass it, and I think the Senate will be close,” Damon said. “I have great hope that we will pass it and get it out.”
Standing before several students and other listeners in the Coe Room of the Memorial Union, Damon said the hearing the day before was one of the most incredible events of his career. The hearing was originally scheduled for April 24. Damon said this made his speech at UMaine either anti-climactic or more historically contextual.
He said he talked to Baldacci prior to the hearing, not to ask him for support, but to request the governor “do nothing,” in that he not veto the bill. Damon said Baldacci did not promise to pass the bill, but that “he is willing to let the discussion and the dialogue go forward.”
“I thought it [Damon's speech] was amazing,” said Charles Chapin, a fifth-year psychology, child development and family relations student.
Chapin, a member of Wilde Stein, said he went with the group to the April 22 hearing. He said he respects Damon and thinks the senator can get the bill passed.
L.D. 1020 will go to a work session of the Maine Judiciary Committee Tuesday April 28, which will be open to the public. The work session may last more than a day, Damon said. He expects the bill will be voted out of committee some time within the next two weeks and that the Maine Legislature will vote on it in mid to late May.
Damon told students that some of his personal history prompted him to sponsor the bill. He said he watched an anti-war rally as a student at UMaine during the 1960s where protestors opposed the U.S. military presence in Vietnam. He said he was less tolerant during the ’60s and joined in decrying the rally. After a dean showed him pictures of himself at the demonstration and told him to be more understanding, Damon said he learned to be more open-minded.
“I would have been one who would have been criticizing; I would have been one who would have been belittling,” Damon said. “Seven years ago, I’m pretty sure I would not have sponsored the bill.”
Damon said he initially felt he wasn’t the best person to sponsor the bill, but said its drafters did and convinced him to support it. He said they felt he should sponsor the bill because he was a straight, older male senator with political capital who represents a rural area, among other reasons.
“I was astonished,” said Kathrine Anderson, a second-year chemistry student who attended Damon’s talk Thursday. “I had no idea he could be so connected to people.”
Damon said he has a fan page on Facebook and estimates 15 to 20 percent of the approximate 600 people on it are not supporters of the bill.
Damon said he originally had felt a referendum on the bill would be beneficial, because it would embolden legislators and remove some of the fundraising ability and martyrdom attitude felt by opponents.
“I thought that it would perhaps provide the cover that some legislators might need to vote on it because they could say, when they went back home to their districts, ‘yup, I voted on it, and I voted on it to pass it, because I want to send it out to the people, so that the people can ultimately vote on it,’” Damon said, who ultimately dismissed the referendum idea. “Our responsibility as legislators is to do the people’s work – that’s what we were sent there to do – and to simply send this out to referendum without a vote on it I think is wrong. We don’t run our government that way. If we did that continuously, then there would just be a series of referendums.”
Damon said the bill is not a “big deal” for young college students today; it is his generation that needs to change. He said “any religion, any church” will not have to perform a marriage that does not fit with their religious doctrine if the bill becomes law, and that notary publics – people authorized to marry others – will also not be bound.
One listener asked Damon about L.D. 1020’s sister bill, L.D. 1118.
“To me that’s not it, and it smacks of ’separate but not equal,’” Damon said, who mentioned he had not met L.D. 1118’s sponsor Leslie Fossel until a week ago.
Another listener asked about the argument of timing, whether it was time for a marriage-equality bill.
“It’s a favorite argument, one that drives me nuts. … It’s always time,” Damon said. “If it was next year, I guarantee you there’d be another reason why ‘not now.’” Damon said he has dismissed this argument “as a shallow attempt” to stop the issue from progressing.
When asked whether religion will enter the Judiciary Committee’s decision on the bill, Damon said some of its members are deeply rooted in religion and some are not. He feels the majority of Maine’s legislators believe the state’s laws are based on secular issues.
Damon praised the testimony from the supporters at the April 22 hearing.
“It seemed that the amount of testimony for the bill was maybe three times greater than the amount of the testimony opposed to the bill, and so by that sheer numbers alone, I think might have had some impact on the committee,” Damon said. “I have been enlightened some by some of the testimony I heard.”
Damon also commented on the economic benefits of the bill, saying a report he recently viewed at the Bangor Chamber of Commerce estimates the additional permitted marriages will bring $60 million to Maine in three years. He said the Bangor Chamber of Commerce supports the bill because of the economic benefits and that the money side of the debate had not occurred to him prior to seeing the report.
“It’s not any reason not to do it,” Damon said.
Damon pushed people to continue their support of the bill.
“Don’t give up. Don’t give in. Don’t give in to the opposers, and don’t give in to your emotions,” he said.
Related Posts:- State debates gay marriage (April 23, 2009)
- Video: State debates gay marriage (April 23, 2009)
- Mainers to speak on gay marriage bill April 22 (April 20, 2009)
- Baldacci urges ‘no’ on Question 1 at Hancock (November 3, 2005)
- Voters veto gay marriage (November 4, 2009)
