Wednesday, May 06, 2009

C'mon California!

This is just embarrassing.

Governor Signs LD 1020, An Act to End Discrimination in Civil Marriage and Affirm Religious Freedom

May 6, 2009

AUGUSTA – Governor John E. Baldacci today signed into law LD 1020, An Act to End Discrimination in Civil Marriage and Affirm Religious Freedom.

“I have followed closely the debate on this issue. I have listened to both sides, as they have presented their arguments during the public hearing and on the floor of the Maine Senate and the House of Representatives. I have read many of the notes and letters sent to my office, and I have weighed my decision carefully,” Governor Baldacci said. “I did not come to this decision lightly or in haste.”

“I appreciate the tone brought to this debate by both sides of the issue,” Governor Baldacci said. “This is an emotional issue that touches deeply many of our most important ideals and traditions. There are good, earnest and honest people on both sides of the question.”

“In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions,” Governor Baldacci said. “I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.”

I mean, Iowa was one thing. But Maine? We're California people. We're Hollyweird, Soddom and frikkin Gomorrah San Francisco boogeymen. And we can't even do this?

Let's face it, Cali. Time to turn in the indie cred, release the greatest hits album and move the main show to a stage in Branson.

67 comments:

  1. Yeah, weird, ain't it, that the East Coast is somehow more liberal than the supposed "Left" Coast, huh?

    I'm still pissed and slightly ashamed of the fact that Oregon, my normally beloved moderate and sensible state, has an actual marriage definition in it's freakin' state constitution. Talk about a bunch of unconstitutional bullshit.

    Feh!

    But, sooner or later, as things work out and spread, it'll be in enough states that the Supreme Court can weigh in and fix things, like they had to do with various other civil injustices.

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  2. Anonymous11:33 AM

    I hope to see the day that the concept of "civil unions" is regarded as ridiculous, outdated, a mistake of the past - and that marriage isn't a question of gender anymore.

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  3. dude, i've played branson. we're not that bad yet.

    really.

    or are we?

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  4. Mainiac12:25 PM

    Hey now, don't be hating on Vacationland! One of two to pass it in legislature - take that, Masshole =p

    And this should make you feel better:
    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gay-marriage-law4-2009may04,0,1007270.story

    CA courts rule on Prop 8 in June...

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  5. David Hunt12:26 PM

    As long as your frakkin’ Constitution can be amended by a simple ballot initiative, California is just screwed. I believe in Democracy, but that’s just not right. A constitution should NEVER be amendable by a simple majority vote. Being able to do it by ballot initiative just adds “batshit” to “insane” with predictable synergies.

    Granted, I don’t live there, so there may be some advantage to the system that I am unaware of that compensates for Batshit insanity. If so, I sure hope whatever it is is worth it…but I doubt it.

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  6. @David Hunt

    It's usually not a problem, because there's rarely an issue in California you can get even 40% of us to agree on. Sadly, this time it worked against common sense, and we got dumb ol' Prop H8te. *sighs*

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  7. Oh, believe me. You don't want gay marriage. I live in Canada, where same-sex marriage is allowed, and we're in a full scale armageddon. Ever since it was legalized, the country has denigrated into chaos. Mothers marrying sons, men marrying sheep, dogs becoming elected officials. The schools have become examples of Lord of the Flies. The gays are converting children on such a large scale that we'll have no more child-bearing couples left in just a generation. There is now talk of banning opposite-sex marriage! My wife and I were thinking of escaping from Canada, but without a pink triangle on our passport, our travel rights are heavily restricted. We're trapped.

    Oh, no. I just realized that the GSS (Gay Secret Police) are probably monitoring the internet. I better st

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  8. Sir Cumference the Round3:43 PM

    We'll see who's laughing when the 500 foot tall Super Jesus with Laser Eyes rises from the Atlantic Ocean and lays waste to all the hedonistic gayzor states! After that the US will be Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Georgia, and California. On the plus side, the flag will be much simpler, and also college football will still be high caliber.

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  9. Man, I love this post.

    Can I quote you?

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  10. dogs becoming elected officials.So ironically, Stephen Harper owes his rise to power to gay marriage?

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  11. "dogs becoming elected officials.So ironically, Stephen Harper owes his rise to power to gay marriage?"

    Sir, I know dogs. I like dogs. I grew up with dogs. Stephen Harper is no dog!

    Snake, maybe.

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  12. You people don't get it, do you? Don't you realize that when we're playing City of Heroes and the Sims, when we're going out to dinner and vacuuming and cleaning the cat box and watching Leverage and writing Alec/Eliot/Parker OT3 fic, that what my wife and I are really trying to do is undermine traditional marriage? It's true!

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  13. Anonymous8:03 PM

    We're very sorry. But the Left Coast is only on... the coast. We still have all those squishy inland bits to think of.

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  14. Alec/Eliot/Parker OT3 ficgah. /b/ couldn't do it, goonswarm didn't do it, but i've been squicked by a kfm comment.

    my lulz is weak.

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  15. Dave L.12:07 AM

    Hopefully all these other states legalizing same sex marriage will put pressure on the California Supreme court to overturn Prop. 8. Then the Religious Right would have to get a similar law through the constitutional revision process, and I think/hope it's unlikely that the legislature would pass it.

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  16. Anonymous7:39 PM

    So I heard a joke. How do you know a liberal? They don't care what you do so long as it's compulsory.
    I really don't give a damn if people want to 'marry' men, women, dogs, leeches, inanimate objects or abstract concepts. I do think it's funny that people want to preempt a religious institution whose religion at it's base forbids those very people's behavior (assuming the base is the Torah, that we're talking about the Judeo-Christian ethos ... check Leviticus, and says no pork too which makes it funny from the other side).
    If it's really a civil rights issue then it shouldn't matter if you have the religious label on it or not. If it's otherwise, why do you want to join the fundies anyway?

    Of course if the government actually got out of people's lives, actually had separation of church and state, there wouldn't be a legal definition of marriage to fight over. You'd do it in a place of worship with goats blood or not as is your wont.

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  17. Maine pride, bitches (grew up there, was campaigning against the atrocious 1995 Prop. 1 when I was 15.). And Iowa pride--got my MFA at the University of Iowa.

    Hephaeston, not sure what you're trying to say, but the marriage talked about here--as is painfully obvious to everyone involved--is the government's civil marriage, the kind that confers over 1,400 individual rights (including the right to visit your beloved at the hospital while they're grievously injured--and yes, gays and lesbians HAVE been prevented from seeing their partners under those scenarios). The reason Maine very smartly added the religious tag to the bill is because your friends have been lying about how this civil marriage bill is going to infringe on religious rights. You have a problem with that? Tell your bigoted asshole friends to stop lying about gay marriage. Oh yeah, and shut the fuck up and stop trying to take away my friends' rights, you dishonest fucking hack.

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  18. Anonymous3:50 AM

    In all seriousness within the given system I see the law as a good thing. I acknowledge that within the greater context marriage is a more or less universal human institution and thus for full equality of opportunity for everyone there needs to be no discrimination in who can do it with whom. (The leviticus comment referred to the dialogue internal to marriage in this country).

    Where I differ (from most of the people that comment) is I don't think government is philosophically justified, period. Aggression is wrong, and tax collection (not to mention the other infinite variety of things the state now does) comes down to wire tapping, rifles, informants, spears, swords, or whatever they've got. Now in practice, presumably, there would be more violence without the existence of some state. That doesn't change the fact that on a theoretical basis there is no justification for taking things with force. It just says that the world is not an ideal theoretical system. We could get a lot closer to that theoretical system and a lot closer to being right and justified.
    Presently the government provides preferential treatment to those that are married. Yes LGBT folks should have the same rights as 'straight' folk. No married folk should not have more rights than single folk. Yes the law is a good thing in the present context. It still pisses me off the state has anything to say about it at all.

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  19. It cannot succeed as a matter of fact, that is what I think.

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  20. Anonymous4:37 AM

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  21. Penderita Penyakit kondiloma atau Kutil Kelamin yang telah terinveksi disarankan untuk segera melakukan pengobatan secepat mungkin sebelum Virus HPV penyebab kutil kelamin makin banyak berkembang biak di dalam sel darah makin lama dibiarkan akan memperparah kondisi organ vital karena kutil kelamin akan terus membesar sehingga terlihat seperti jengger ayam untuk penderita yang baru tertular kurang dari satu bulan biasanya akan lebih cepat ditanggulangi obat kutil kelamin Paling ampuh dari De Nature dan terbaik ada hanya di http://obatkutildikemaluan.blogdetik.com/ untuk mendapatkan informasi yang lebih jelas mengenai pengobatan kutil pada kelamin silahkan kontak langsung di nomer 0852 808 77 999 atau 0859 7373 5656 Bagaimana mengobati Ambeien itu sendiri. pengobatan yang terbaik untuk Ambeien adalah dari luar dan dalam sehingga Ambeien benar benar tuntas dan tidak akan kambuh lagi. obat Ambeien terbaik "Ambeclear dari De Nature" AlamiAdalah obat Ambeien herbal yang memang terbaik untuk mengobati Ambeien, dan sudah terdaftar di badan obat dan makanan (BPOM) dengan nomer registrasi POM TR: 133 374 041. terbuat dari bahan alami antara lain terdiri Daung Ungu, Mahkota Dewa dan Kunyit Putih.

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  22. Penyakit kencing nanah bisa disebabkan oleh beberapa faktor seperti seks bebas, penularan, virus hpv, lingkungan, gaya hidup dan lainnya, Maka dari itu kita harus waspada dengan penyakit kencing nanah ini, karena penyakit kencing nanah sangatlah berbahaya, Namun untuk anda yang menderita penyakit kencing nanah, maka anda tidak perlu khawatir,

    ReplyDelete
  23. Bukan hanya pengobatan medis saja tapi ada juga pengobatan rumah alami yang dapat digunakan untuk menyingkirkan penyakit kutil kelamin ini. Intinya, karena kutil ini muncul di daerah yang sensitif, maka anda harus mencari pengobatan yang terbaik pada kulit Anda dan jika diperlukan juga dibantu dengan tenaga medis yang professional. Sebab dokter akan menjadi sumber informasi yang baik untuk mengobati penyakit ini.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Bukan hanya pengobatan medis saja tapi ada juga pengobatan rumah alami yang dapat digunakan untuk menyingkirkan penyakit kencing bernanah ini. Maka anda harus mencari pengobatan yang terbaik pada penyakit Anda dan jika diperlukan juga dibantu dengan tenaga medis yang professional.

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete
  28. Anonymous2:04 PM

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    faktor peyebabnya, Antara lain yaitu iklim, lingkungan, tempat tinggal,

    ReplyDelete