This post was submitted by Amelie

Maine became the fifth state in the country to approve gay marriage this week, with Governor Baldacci signing the bill into law just yesterday. As a former/current Maine resident (I’m still technically a resident if you check my driver’s license) with a lot of family in the state, it’s awesome. Not only do I now have another option for a wedding location – I can get married in my parent’s backyard, my aunt’s backyard or my grandfather’s backyard – but it’s awesome considering I thought it would be years before marriage in Maine was a reality.

Maine often gets lumped in with the rest of New England as being super-liberal, when in reality it’s not at all. While the state certainly has a strong liberal presence, there’s also a very vocal conservative presence – one that I’m all too familiar with, thanks to my four years at small liberal arts college in Lewiston, ME.

In the Fall of 2005, I arrived back on campus to find out that the Maine state legislature was going to be voting on a measure to repeal Maine’s anti-discrimination policy towards the GLBT community. Ballot referendum No. 1 soon became the biggest issue on the ballot. “Yes on 1″ signs were everywhere, using a rhetoric of preserving the sancity of marriage and saving families to promote their cause.

Of course, most kids on campus, including myself, got involved in the No on One campaign. Phone banking, data entry, canvassing, you name it. A group of my friends and I went out canvassing as much as we could. I’ll spare you the full details, but door by door, we tried to insure that GLBT rights stayed protected in Maine. We were often met with positive comments, but there were also often discouraging ones. There were the people who didn’t want to go and vote and there were those who were openly homophobic.

When it got close to election night, the polls showed that the iniative was dangerously close to passing. So we went out election night and canvassed until the polls were closing. Then a group of us drove down to Portland for the after party, unsure if the four hours we’d just spent were going to do any good. There had been a lot of negative feedback, so we were nervous.

We finally arrived at the party (a bit late since we had stopped to chug a bottle of wine and a six-pack in the parking garage, since our underaged selves were afraid we wouldn’t get served at the bar). When we walked in, we were greeted by one of our professors letting us know there was good news – the iniative had been rejected, though only by 10 points or so. Victory! But it was a close victory, and one that made me think that marriage in Maine was going to be far off.

There aren’t that many times I wish I was still in college, but right now I wish I was back at Bates. One of my friends just informed me that proposals (though most not to be taken seriously) are abounding. Everyone’s excited. I can almost feel their joy and energy; unfortunately, as I’m tethered to my desk in Bethesda right now, I can’t join them in their celebrating. But though I’m sad this didn’t happen while I was still at school, a message in a group email chain on the topic reminded me why it’s probably a good thing, at least for me:

“For some reason I think its lucky that this didn’t get past until after amelie left bates….”

Yeah. I probably would have been married 8 times by now, just because I could be. So I’m looking at it as a trade off – I may have had to wait an extra year or two, but I’ve probably saved a few thousand in legal fees. Now I just get to endlessly pester my girlfriend about getting married when we visit Maine this summer.

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