P.S. The latest unemployment figures (As of October 2009) for Maine and Massachusetts are 7.6% and 8.4%. Significantly higher? Hardly! You can’t even be honest about basic statistics!

Really, you lost, Shawn. Get over it and move on. Take your delusional misrepresentations of reality elsewhere.

This isn’t about rights. Neither the Maine Constitution nor the U.S. Constitution mention marriage. Constantly labeling everything a right only shows what total disregard the left has for the Constitution.

Moreover, you’re wrong. Maine’s economy is doing better than at least two states in the region – both Massachusetts and Rhode Island have a significantly higher unemployment rate than Maine.

To paint everyone who voted in a certain way in a bigot is, in fact, bigoted. You and Mike are the bigots, Shawn. I love how the left preaches tolerance and diversity, than labels everyone who disagrees with them a “bigot” because of how they voted.

Are you a Mainer? If not, I am thankful that you are not. If you are, please move. If you don’t like losing elections, try moving to say Iran, Saudi Arabia, or China. Then you won’t have to deal with the messy consequences of democracy or worry about whether something is a “right” or not, because nothing is.

But here in America – and especially in Maine – we live in a democratic society, where people get a chance to vote on things. And everytime people have voted on this extremist cause of yours, it’s lost.

31 and counting.

When will we have the 32nd state?

In what fantasy world are you living? Maine was not “taking leaps and bounds beyond other New England states.” Your state is the shame of New England. Habitually a laggard in every regard. Poorer, more economically moribund, and, obviously, WAY more intolerant than the rest of the region. Your blithe attitude about the vote treats this issue as if it were merely a tax abatement referendum. Once again, your state voted to treat gay Mainers as less equal than heterosexual Mainers. Your state has been voting on the rights of gays for almost 20 years now. Most of those votes have gone against fairness. You think Joe is an ass because he doesn’t want to live in a state like yours that validates discrimination at the ballot box? Well, there is one thing you and I agree on: Joe would be much happier in Massachusetts (or any of the other New England states). I am so thankful that the rest of New England is not like Maine. We find your never-ending ballot box bigotry to be unfathomable! Joe, skip Maine, come to the rest of New England. You will be much happier living amongst kinder, better educated, more tolerant people. As Norrie Hoyt said Vermont is lovely. It represents the best of New England (whilst Maine represents the worst).

And as for demographic shifts and biding your time, conservatives are the ones having babies, not liberals.

Thanks for the stats! I was looking for them everywhere so I hope yours are good because it leads me to the following observations and my answer to the question, “Why No lost…Firstly, I would like to say that I am very proud of the Maine legislators who were so forward thinking as to change the marriage law in the first place, which led us all into this odyssey. No” lost simply because of voter complacency. Oh, not all voters, just the large majority of them in Maine, who, yes, happen to be liberals. When a small number of people who all share the same politics, religion, orthodoxy, or fear can be organized as were the people in the “yes” camp. When these people who are easily gathered make up their mind to VOTE, they do just that. They VOTE, and they do it in extremely high numbers. (i.e,, Nearly every single one of them will go to the ballot box to vote their way) This makes them very effective especially, they even know this, when at the same time the larger number of registered and equally empowered group of people who are not organized, are not scared, are not threatened, and are just plain old busy doing other things so they are not compelled to join in, these tend consistently to vote in smaller numbers compared to their group’s size. Much smaller numbers. That is Why, and HOW, “No” lost! Furthermore, it will happen again, and again, until there is such a shift in the population of voters that the previously smaller voting block becomes the larger one and then, the people who were part of that complacent group of formerly large numbers, has no power to defend themselves any longer. The numbers show that when the total turnout was large, “NO” either won, or it was a really close match. The numbers also show that when there were small turnouts, the “No” vote was clobbered badly! It is clear to me that if more people in the state of Maine would have turned out, this would be a different story. A story of a great state, with liberal minded fair people, and a forward looking Governor, and legislators, with a great social policy. Lesson to be learned: If you don’t want a small group of crazy fanatic people governing your life, get the hell off your asses and vote for yourself because they will vote, and I mean, ALL of them, and it will take ALL we have to defeat them. Remember the way it went? They came for them, but I was not a member of their group so I said nothing; they came for the others and still I said nothing because I was not a member of that group; finally, they came for me, but there was no one left to defend me. Speak up, or else!

1) Mr. Gagnon, do you think this cultural conservatism extends to abortion?

2) I’m from an apparently backwards mill town and fed the hell up with hearing Massholes and Old Port-types writing nasty things about me and my family. There is nothing tolerant about you at all.