In the run up to the election on Tuesday, we feel as if we have heard every quip and quote that the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ On 1 campaigns could hurl at us.
Our mailboxes have been bursting with fliers, our public spaces littered with signs, and the Internet is so overrun with banner ads that we haven’t been able to see the top half of the Press Herald homepage for a week now.
But all this promotional material is a waste, because this has to be one of the most common sense questions ever to grace a ballot.
This Tuesday, vote No on one.
Arguments for gay marriage are based on the same of spirit of equality that we have all come to recognize as common sense. Arguments against the idea are based on fear and bigotry cloaked in the guise of family values. Those who cling to an outdated ideal for the sake of historical continuity have been proven wrong time and time again.
The backbone of marriage is not the church, it isn’t the state, and it’s not what other people think or how it might affect them. The backbone of marriage is love, and that’s not something anyone should be allowed to legislate.
Marriage isn’t an archaic and unchangeable institution. It’s one that must grow and adapt with us as we mature as a society. Decades ago, inter-racial marriage was viewed with the same hate, fear, and intolerance that we’ve seen during this election cycle. To think that we’ve progressed so little in so many years should be an embarrassment.
We believe that one day history will look back on this era and question just what their great-grandparents were thinking; drawing such arbitrary lines for who is granted even the most basic of human rights, just as we look back on the civil rights movement today, and wonder why it took so long for racial equality to become the status quo.
Furthermore, supporters of Yes on 1 fail to realize that what they’ve turned into an argument about semantics is really about much more than that.
Every day that gay marriage is not legal in Maine is another day that the state effectively reaches into the pockets of hard working, loving couples, and taxes them for their sexual preferences.
The campaign of misinformation has been another disheartening aspect of this highly contentious question. No, your church would not be required to marry gay couples against their will. No, the ins and outs of gay sex will not be taught to children in schools. And no, this will not destroy the institution of marriage.
In fact, gay marriage has the potential to strengthen the institution as a whole. Divorce rates among gay couple in other states are far lower than that of heterosexual couples nationwide, and any segment of the population who is so eager to formalize their relationship should be an inspiration to the rest of us.
-The Free Press Editorial Staff