Although Maine's "No On 1" campaign, an effort to reject a ballot initiative overturning same-sex marriage in Maine, got much attention, it was ultimately unsuccessful. (For those who are counting, Maine rejected gay marriage by a 4-point margin, and California's Prop. 8 measure passed by 5 points.) Meanwhile, Washington state confirmed Referendum 71, estimated to pass with just over 51 percent of the vote. The AP reports, "Five states have legalized gay marriage — Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut — but all did so through legislation or court rulings, not by popular vote."
So does this mean that same-sex marriage doesn't pass when put up to a popular vote but same-sex domestic partnerships do? The election results of these two states hardly serve as projection for the rest of the country. After all, Washington state is small and has a firm socially liberal base in Seattle. But if the question is fundamentally about rights, the LGBT community may have to consider if they'd be willing to settle for equalizing rights though domestic partnerships or if they'd have to do a lot more grassroots work to make folks comfortable with letting teh gayz into the insitution of marriage.
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