Tom's Blog

Even though this is under the category ‘Cool Gay News’ Maine’s vote to repeal gay marriage wasn’t cool.  I’ll come back to that shortly.  First the cool news:

Kalamazoo Michigan did vote to expand gay rights by a wide margin.  Not marriage of course but I still congratulate and thank them for what they did.

Washington state’s referendum 71 looks like it passed giving gays there everything but marriage.  Narrowly and we won’t know for sure for a few more days but again thank you to the citizens of Washington.  What was passed in Washington is exactly what I’d want from the state government.  All the rights that a state can confer to it citizens in a committed relationship.  This law was for gay and straight couples.

A number of GLBT people were elected to various political offices.  Yay!  Even in Texas the new mayor of Houston might be a lesbian.  She is in a runoff vote since no one got the majority.  In Texas even making it that far is amazing.

Sigh back to Maine.  According to the polls it should have been a lot closer, but people probably lied to the pollsters about how they would vote.  When talking to a real person on the phone they are ashamed to be voting against gay marriage because they know that it means they are bigots, but since the ballot is secret they can be as discriminatory as they want without worrying about anyone knowing.  That sort of hypocrisy really bothers me.  Another thing that really bothers me is the total dead silence from the Federal government.  Not a word of support to either side before the vote and total indifference to the results.  Obama in particular has said over and over that he would be a strong advocate for gays.  At least with Bush we knew he hated us and would not support anything that improved the lives of gays and he never lied about his stance.  Obama on the other hand I have to say has lied to the gay community every time he has talked to us.  Obama certainly has not been an advocate for us.  Scott Fish, a spokesman for Stand for Marriage Maine, said the campaign had never been anti-gay.  Mr. Fish there is no other way to spin it.  Repealing the gay marriage law was anti-gay.  You and everyone who voted ‘Yes’ is anti-gay.  There is no other interpretation.  Period.

I wonder if Obama would sign into law Federal recognition of gay marriage?  I would bet every penny I pay in taxes that he wouldn’t.