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Residents of the state say the yearlong debate and vote changed Maine, for better or worse.

By MATT WICKENHEISER, Staff Writer November 8, 2009

Bill Whitten finds himself looking at people he meets, wondering to himself how they voted on Question 1.

Michael Poulin is worried about what he believes is a resurgence of anti-Catholicism in the state.

Beverly Uhlenhake feels it's easier to have conversations about gay and lesbian-led families like her own – but also thinks the myth of Maine as a "live and let live" state has been debunked.

Janice Couture sees a reaffirmation and strengthening of traditional marriage, a reinforcement of her beliefs.

Gay marriage has been debated for a year in Maine. The idea was first raised in November 2008. A gay marriage bill worked through the Legislature, was signed into law by the governor and was debated and ultimately repealed last week by the voters of Maine, 299,483 to 267,574, a margin of 31,909 votes with 99 percent of the precincts reporting.

For many people, nothing has changed. But for those who were engaged in the debate, Maine is a different place today than it was a year ago. People have left their churches, upset over the official stance on same-sex marriage. Others feel they've been painted as bigots for their beliefs.

Maine has changed.

How, and to what extent, depends on who you ask.

THE MARINE

Bill Whitten was born in Lincoln, lived in Brewer, then Cumberland and now calls Yarmouth home. He played football and baseball in school, went into the Marines, is a black belt martial arts instructor and had a "pretty macho" life until he and his wife had two daughters.

And his youngest daughter is gay.

Whitten has taken on a number of veteran-related causes in the area. He's the guy who erected the flag out on Fort Gorges in Casco Bay. He raised $150,000 to restore the USS Portland mast on Munjoy Hill. Those were important causes, but he realized what he should be doing when the gay marriage debate came up, said Whitten.

"My real calling was the principle of equality and what's right and wrong. When this whole gay marriage thing came up I said 'This just wasn't right,' " said Whitten. "It's wrong that these people don't have the same rights."

He testified during the public hearing on the bill, and was in a commercial urging Mainers to vote no on question one. Everyone he talked to told him they were voting no. Now, after the vote, he's angry, wonders who was telling him the truth, who voted yes. Lincoln, where he grew up, voted 70 percent to 30 percent to veto the bill. He saw pictures of veto supporters cheering, and he's depressed.

Someone told him he couldn't take the vote personally. He doesn't know how not to.

"This is my daughter, my family, that was told they were less," said Whitten. "This is just saying that what she is, is less than anyone else.

With each passing year, he likes the cold less and less. He's been considering a move to warmer climes, and the vote has moved up the timetable, said Whitten.

"I just don't want to be here, and this is a place I've lived for 60 years," said Whitten. "I've lived here all my life – this is the only time in my life I'm embarrassed to say I'm from Maine."

THE FOOT SOLDIER

Janice Couture worked on the veto campaign from the start, collecting signatures to put the question on the ballot, then making phone calls, going door-to-door – all the foot-soldier tasks important to any political effort.

The reason she worked so hard as a volunteer was simple for Couture. Changing the definition of marriage in Maine, said Couture, "would have created a wound that wouldn't have healed."

"If you take the backbone of society, the foundation, the structure – when you remove that, you remove what holds society together," said Couture, who grew up in Biddeford and lives in Falmouth.

The vote has had a very real impact on Couture, she said, and on Maine.

"It's reinforced what...