However, I am also a realist, and I recognize that my ideal outcome will never happen. So I am happy to settle for the second best outcome, which is to expand government regulation of marriage to the minimal extent necessary to achieve equal rights.

The problem is that, for some reason that I can’t understand, you and every other gay marriage supporter in the world absolutely insist on reaching far beyond the issue of equality. There is no constitutional right to heterosexual marriage in any state or federal constitution in the country, yet that is exactly what gay marriage supporters seem to require. Not merely equality, but a new constitutional right only for gay couples, that heterosexual couples never had.

To be extremely specific, I want to live in a future where, should the population as a whole finally come to their senses and abolish state marriage, they will not have to confront the hurdle of repealing additional legal and constitutional privileges for gay marriages, provisions which are separate from heterosexual marriages.

I am honestly baffled why you won’t settle for equality, and why you (and many of the other gay marriage supporters here) attack me for even suggesting that your movement should focus on equality.

The government already has established a marriage that is not religious, and has no religious affiliation. The history of marriage is ineffectual as part of the debate, as no one can exactly tell us whether or not marriage has always been a religious ceremony; focus instead on the modern concept of marriage, which DOES exist in a religious setting and in a legal one. The goal, ultimately, of same-sex marriage supporters was everything you suggested we do, except from shying away from calling it ‘Marriage’.

In short, as long as a heterosexual couple can marry legally in any state, WITHOUT religious significance — and this happens all the time right now — and Gay couples cannot, the “separate but uneqal” argument will always apply.

Also, the language of LD 1020 very specifically PROTECTED religious institutions that do not support gay marriage.

Your proposal DOES FAIL to achieve full equality because you fail to acknowledge the current duality that marriage has. Whether or not “marriage” may have once been a purely religious institution is immaterial. Focus on marriage now, in 2009, where there is a specifically religious institution and a specifically legal institution of marriage, and no valid reason, in this day and age, to deny loving, commited gay couples protections under the latter.

I’d like to believe openly showing where our funds originated is the more HONEST approach. If Maine voters like secrecy of who’s buying massive amount of fear mongering ads…that’s up to them.

Thank you for proving my point. It’s just too bad that next time you appeal for the other side to “show empathy” to gay couples you won’t get the irony.

If there were valid reasonable arguements against marriage equality, then why are 4 MASSIVE donors (who hid where there money came from) 90% of their funding. Why hide behind school kids stirring up irrational phobias, when local school boards decide what is taught. Why use PHONY stock photos instead of actual Maine hetero families.
It’s because they had NOTHING but bigotry, there is NO danger to straight marriage posed by same sex marriages. Look at VT, CT, MA, IA do they have straight marriages crashing and burning, or has their divorce rate FALLEN?

Certain people show themselves to be as hateful and intolerant as those they decry.

If you don’t agree with my proposal, fine, but I would appreciate some sort of constructive response rather than being called names like “smarmy”, a “bigot”, “hiding”, “insulting”, “stupid”, or a “coward”. I suggest you take a good hard look in the mirror and ask yourself honestly which of the two of us is being intolerant and hateful.

You have a long way to go if you are really under the delusion that you did everything correctly in this campaign. The 3-4% of swing voters out there are incredibly put off by this kind of rhetoric, which paints them with the same brush as the Christian right.