AUGUSTA, ME – Marriage equality supporters have gathered more than the required signatures to put same-sex marriage to a vote in November, three years after voters banned it. Maine lawmakers legalized gay marriage in 2009, but a statewide referendum that year overturned marriage equality by 53 percent to 47 percent. Proponents say the nationwide tide of public acceptance has shifted cultural attitudes in the past three years, and that polls show they would win a statewide vote by as much as 10 percentage points. Maine Secretary of State Charles Summers said last Thursday that advocates had gathered over 85,000 signatures, far more than the required 57,277. Opponents have 10 days to challenge the signatures. No U.S. state has ever approved marriage equality in a referendum.

“It’s going to be challenging,” David Farmer with Equality Maine told Reuters last week. “We’ve been working hard since 2009. We’ve spoken to 40,000 people one-on-one to change their minds and we believe those efforts will pay off,” Farmer offered optimistically. Maine is one of a number of battleground states this year for national groups supporting and opposing marriage equality. This year, voters in Minnesota and North Carolina will consider constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage.

A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court decision that could compel the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) to disclose the names of donors who helped finance the $1.8 million effort in 2009 to overturn the law.

The Washington, DC-based group opposes marriage equality. “NOM intends to vigorously fight this attempt by same-sex marriage advocates to impose gay marriage in Maine,” Brian Brown, NOM’s president, recent stated. “Maine voters rejected gay marriage barely more than two years ago.

What part of ‘no’ don’t gay marriage advocates understand?”