Florida Agenda

PORTLAND, MAINE — On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a national anti-marriage equality group, in its bid to prevent its donor list from being released under Maine’s campaign disclosure law.

The justices refused the National Organization for Marriage’s (NOM) request, which was made in an effort to keep secret the names of contributors who helped fund the group’s $1.9 million donation to a political action committee (PAC) during the repeal of the state’s same-sex marriage law.

The state’s campaign disclosure law requires that groups which give more than $5,000 to PACs— or other efforts to influence an election—disclose their donors. Attorneys for Washington, D.C.- based NOM argued that releasing the donor list would curtail free speech and result in harassment for the donors. The group challenged the Maine law, but a lower court refused to overturn it.

In 2009, Maine voters repealed the state’s marriage equality law. That law is once more on the state ballot in the November 6 general election. NOM has donated $250,000 to the campaign opposing marriage equality. The donor list remains closed until a separate case works its way through the state courts.

CLIFF DUNN

By JOE HARRIS

In November, voters in four states will be asked to make permanent— more or less—their jurisdictions’ treatment of marriage equality (or reasonable facsimiles thereof). Ballot initiatives in Maryland and Washington will determine whether marriage equality laws signed this year will stay on the books. In Maine, voters will decide once and for all, they presume, whether to allow gay marriage back into the Pine Tree State (where it was already signed into law—and overturned at the ballot box—in 2009). And in Minnesota, a constitutional amendment would enshrine marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

The Maine Event

AUGUSTA, MAINE – In 2009, state lawmakers enacted marriage equality, but it was overturned in the voting booth. Supporters of ballot Question 1 want to reinstate same-sex marriage. Both they and their opponents criticized the wording of the ballot question (“Do you want to allow same-sex couples to marry?”) as being too simplistic. Although Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, has been silent about his position on the issue, in May he criticized the teachers’ union for endorsing it, and later vetoed the union’s pay bill. Polls suggest that most voters (58 percent) support the marriage equality referendum.

Freedom to Marry in the Free State?

ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND – Supporters hope to pass an initiative repealing the state’s Civil Marriage Protection Act, which was enacted earlier this year in support of marriage equality. Survey data shows strong support for same-sex marriage in Maryland.

The Veep, the General, and the Gays

ST PAUL, MINNESOTA – Although gay marriage isn’t legal there, Republican lawmakers and conservative activists support a constitutional amendment to prohibit it from ever rearing its head in the North Star State. The ballot measure asks, “Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?” (Republicans want you to answer, “Yes.”)

The question’s opponents include former Vice President Walter Mondale (D-MN), Fortune 500 corporation (and Minnesota-based) General Mills, Thomson Reuters, Target, and U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN).

Ever-Pink in the Evergreen State?

OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON- The state’s Referendum 74 would repeal the marriage equality law signed in February by Gov. Christine Gregoire, a Democrat. The referendum question asks voters to approve or reject the law, which “allows same-sex couples to marry, applies marriage laws without regard to gender, and specifies that laws using gender specific terms like husband and wife include same-sex spouses.”

The law also says that “After 2014, existing domestic partnerships are converted to marriages, except for seniors. It preserves the right of clergy or religious organizations to refuse to perform or recognize any marriage or accommodate wedding ceremonies. The bill does not affect licensing of religious organizations providing adoption, foster-care, or child placement.”

Major supporters of Washington state marriage equality include Amazon.com, Google, Microsoft, Nike, and Starbucks.

AUGUSTA, MAINE – Dozens of conservative Christian churches put the arm on parishioners for the second Sunday in row, collecting donations to oppose the November ballot initiative to legalize same sex marriage. Approximately 150 churches participated in the special Father’s Day plate offerings, which were intended to raise money for the Protect Marriage Maine political action committee.

“We have intentionally chosen Father’s Day to emphasize the stark differences between those who support Biblical marriage, and those who are attempting to redefine marriage,” Pastor Bob Emrich, chairman of Protect Marriage Maine, wrote last week. “We believe God designed and utilizes the differences between men and women to establish the ideal environment to raise a family. The other side believes moms and dads are replaceable by generic adults.”

According to documents filed with the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices, as of June 1, Mainers United for Marriage, the umbrella organization for supporters of marriage equality, had raised close to $359,000.

By comparison, opponents Protect Marriage Maine had raised about $10,000. Marriage equality supporters have since raised more than $120,000, to match a $100,000 contribution from Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes.

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?”

LEWISTON, ME – According to the Bangor Daily News, supporters of marriage equality have officially kicked off their efforts to get same-sex marriage on the 2012 ballot. A spokesperson for Equality Maine said the organization needed to finish the job they started in 2009.

In 2009, a bill allowing same-sex marriage passed largely along party lines in the Democrat-controlled Maine Senate and House and was signed into law by Democratic Governor Baldacci.

A people’s veto effort was immediately launched, run by a coalition of evangelical Christian churches and the Catholic Church in Maine.

Outside support was provided to both sides and overall spending on the referendum question totaled $9.6 million.
The people’s veto was successful and the same-sex marriage law was overturned 300,848 to 267,828.

Gay marriage supporters must get 57,277 signatures to get the question on the November, 2012, ballot. They hope to build on momentum in Rhode Island and New York, which earlier this month became the sixth state to allow gay marriage.