Everybody else is sounding off on the defeat of same-sex marriage, so I will, too.
• The vote margin: I thought it was going to be tighter than it was, but the 53-47 vote voiding the law was still described in local and wire reports as "razor-thin" (in an early story when it was 52-48); and later as "narrow" and "close."
Oddly, 53-47 is nearly identical to the percentage by which Barack Obama prevailed over John McCain last year, and I seem to recall that it was called "a solid mandate for change."
Some people even called it "a landslide," but they may have been referring to the electoral vote split, which was much wider. Still, since you can get all of a state's electoral votes by winning them by one actual vote, it's also less meaningful in claiming popular support.
What could account for the differing adjectives? Well, the conservative side prevailed on Tuesday, so its win was "narrow." But liberals won last year, so that was a "mandate."
People wonder why Fox News (which, unlike the other cable and broadcast networks, offers both conservatives and liberals a fair shake on its news programs) is popular with viewers.
On Election Night, it had four times the audience that the next closest cable network, MSNBC, attracted.
The answer is in one observer's comment that Roger Ailes, the head of Fox, "had discovered a niche audience that all the other networks were ignoring: half the American people."
I read one wire story on the Question 1 vote Thursday that said that "no" vote supporters were "heartbroken" at the outcome. I read down further to find where "yes" backers were described as "overjoyed," but somehow I missed it. I guess emotional adjectives come with a partisan spin. But it did make me wonder how much longer other news outlets will ignore the "niche" Ailes is attracting.
• The issue: As Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage (www.nationformarriage.org), noted Wednesday, "Americans have a great deal of goodwill toward gays as friends, neighbors and fellow citizens. ... But we do not believe gay marriage is a civil right; we believe it is a civil wrong."
Why? In my own view, it is because there is not – and can never be – a "right" to marry someone else. If we possess a right, it can be asserted in law against the efforts of others to deprive us of it.
But the law already forbids us to marry many people, such as those who are too young, or who are close relatives, or who are already married.
It only recognizes basic truths of human nature – physically, emotionally and with regard to bearing and raising children, who need both mothers and fathers – to also limit us to members of opposite sexes, as nearly all societies everywhere have been wise enough to do.
Legalizing same-sex "marriage" will also lead directly to legalizing polygamy, because there's nothing in all this hollow "rights" talk that would limit the number – or the sexes – of potential spouses.
• The reaction: As Gallagher pointed out, Americans in general "do not appreciate the increasingly intense efforts to punish people who disagree with gay marriage as if we were racists, bigots, discriminators or haters."
Amid all the slanders, cheap insults and other vitriol being aimed at "yes" voters, a darker, vengeful side seems in danger of erupting here, as it has elsewhere. One part is aimed at individuals: Don Mendell, a guidance counselor at Nokomis Regional High School in Newport, is the target of a complaint filed by a Question 1 opponent because he appeared in a TV commercial seeking a "yes" vote. As Gallagher noted, the complaint seeks the loss of his license – and thus his job.
"What kind of movement spurs people to act like this?" Gallagher asked. "Meanwhile, a teacher of the year who campaigned for gay marriage faces no such threat to her livelihood. Is gay marriage really about love and tolerance?"
Good question. In response, SSM backers noted that the Catholic Church has removed a woman from a Scripture reader's post for publicly opposing Question 1. But readers aren't paid, and the post is an honor for people who presumably are good examples of their faith.
If the church doesn't think this woman meets its standard, that has nothing to do with free speech – and everything to do with freedom of religion.
Ominously, the Web site Maine Marriage Equality is posting links to the names of backers of Question 1 (with a clear if unstated threat of retribution) and is asking people to file IRS complaints against churches that supported the law's repeal. Legal precedents favor the churches, but that doesn't mean they can't be harassed by such complaints.
• The threat to freedom: There's something dangerous to real civil liberties here, too:
It's the idea that somehow it is a violation of our freedom for citizens to have the right to vote on such issues. There are actually people who think you should be denied the right to vote because in their opinion you voted the wrong way.
Asserting without any evidence that marriage is a "civil right" is the phony excuse for this argument, which really is the utter height of arrogance on the part of our liberal elites.
This is why William F. Buckley Jr. said he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard.
Liberals are not sovereign over us because of their own inflated self-regard. Neither are elected officials, who are our employees, not our masters.
The people are sovereign, under God, and they have drawn a line in the sand in 31 states opposing counterfeit marriage.
Now, we have to defend that line. Count me in. I wouldn't want to be left off anyone's list.
M.D. Harmon is an editorial writer. He can be contacted at:
mharmon@pressherald.com
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