Ray Dumont wasn't sure what all the clapping was about. Then he heard someone say, "It passed! It passed!"

That's when Dumont checked online and learned that Gov. John Baldacci had signed a bill allowing same-sex partners to marry.

"I'm thrilled. That was the question: Will he sign it?" said Dumont, the business coordinator for student government at the University of Southern Maine.

Even for those following the issue, the quick action was a surprise. The governor, who had remained mum about how he would act, signed the measure barely an hour after it won final Senate approval.

"Hallelujah!" exclaimed Jo Moser, a South Portland photographer who has been with her partner, Nicole Gilbert, for 35 years.

The signing of the bill makes Maine the fifth state in the nation to allow gay marriage, and opens up possibilities for couples such as Dumont and his partner of 10 years, Rodney Mondor, associate director of academic advising at USM.

The two will definitely marry, Dumont said, but they haven't set a date.

"We want it to be right. Doesn't everybody?" Dumont said. "We want it to be something we'll all remember."

Carolyn Thomas, a banker from Falmouth, was in a meeting when she got the text message from her partner, Jenn Curran. Thomas had to wait about a half-hour before she was able to call. When she did, she asked Curran to marry her.

The couple, who have been together 11 years and have a 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Meghan Curran, are registered as domestic partners with the state. They have not had a marriage ceremony.

"If we were going to do it, we wanted it to be the real thing – not the substitute for the real thing," said Thomas.

Thirteen years ago, Sarah Dowling and Linda Wolfe of Freeport had a religious ceremony. They got a marriage certificate in which the words "under the laws of the State of Maine" were crossed out. Five years later, they had a civil-union ceremony in Vermont.

Despite this, their 7-year-old daughter, Maya Dowling-Wolfe, came home from school one day and told them that only a man and a woman could be married. The couple had been talking about marrying in Massachusetts this summer, in part so their daughter could witness the event.

Dowling, who works at Spurwink Institute in New Gloucester, and Wolfe, a nurse practitioner, hadn't realized it could be possible in Maine so soon.

Dumont said it was a joyful day, but he wasn't sure how the couple and their 9-year-old son, Ethan Mondor, would celebrate.

"We'll try," Dumont said. "But between Little League and karate, maybe we'll just do my son's homework with a little extra energy today. That's the fact of it. We really are just like every other family. Those priorities come first."

Staff Writer Ann S. Kim can be contacted at 791-6383 or at:

akim@pressherald.com