The Next State to Legalize Gay Marriage?

by Michael Jones · 2008-12-16 04:00:00 UTC
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MarriageI feel like I should start an office pool with my coworkers over which state will be the next one to legalize same-sex marriage.  Iowa?  New Jersey?  New York?  Vermont?

Today's leading candidate gets to be Maine, with advocates on both sides of the marriage issue gearing up for the next legislative session in January.  Equality Maine did an outstanding job on Election Day, organizing volunteers outside of 86 polling places to get more than 30,000 voters to sign a postcard saying they support marriage equality.  The Maine Civil Liberties Union has also hired a marriage organizer for the state, and is preparing to launch a new Web site dedicated to marriage equality in the Pine Tree State.

A few weeks back, a new coalition of religious leaders - the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry -  launched to support marriage equality.  They held four press conferences around the state to gauge support for gay marriage, and they're finding a sympathetic audience.  As the Executive Director of Equality Maine, Betsy Smith, put it:

There is clearly a lot of support for us winning marriage in Maine. There's a lot of momentum, there's a lot of enthusiasm. We're really getting a lay of the land.

We'll have to stay tuned to see if a bill makes its way to the legislature in 2009.  Opposition has started to come up in the state as well, with a few groups renewing their push to amend Maine's constitution to define marriage as between one man, and one woman.  But Maine has a track record of supporting equality when it's put on a ballot, which is good news for gay marriage proponents.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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