Amidst all the election news yesterday perhaps the most depressing news came from Maine, where voters decided that they did not want gay marriage in their state. From the New York Times:

“Maine became the 31st state to block same-sex marriage through a public referendum, a result that will force supporters to rethink their national strategy at a crucial time for the movement. With 84 percent of precincts reporting early Wednesday, the repeal proposal had 53 percent of the vote, even though polls had indicated the race was a dead heat.

This year three other states — Iowa, New Hampshire and Vermont — joined Massachusetts and Connecticut in allowing same-sex marriage, but only through court rulings and legislative action. Maine, with its libertarian leanings, had seemed to offer an excellent chance of reversing the long national trend of voters rejecting marriage equality at the ballot box.”

This is definitely not “the way life should be.”  The entire things is so disheartening and not just because of the results of the vote. It is mostly upsetting because people’s human rights should never be up for vote, the majority should NOT be able to decide what rights the minority should and should not have.

I can’t help but think about Keith Olbermann’s special comment on Gay Marriage and Jon Stewart’s interview with Mike Huckabee on the subject as a longer form response to why all of these referendums are ridiculous and so wrong. Give a watch to the videos below and then go to the “act” section of this post and learn how you can make a difference.

_______

*photo by Phil Romans (CC)