Gay Marriage passes in Maine, Maryland, Washington as Minnesota makes historic vote
Same-sex marriage advocates will point to 2012 as a historic vote with three states approving gay marriages and Minnesota becoming the first state to block a “one man, one woman” definition of marriage.
“Lesbian” wedding mock-cake at the Roma Gay Pride in 2008. Picture by Stefano Bolognini via wikimedia commons.
Minnesota has voted down Amendment 1, a constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as being a union solely between a man and a woman. The state became the first in the country to vote against such an amendment on the ballot when results were announced early Wednesday.
In Washington, the late night counting indicated a passing of Referendum 74 and voters in Maine and Maryland chose to legalize gay marriage.
Gay rights advocates are already celebrating this development as a critical victory and a turning point in the fight for marriage equality.
Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, an organization that has long advocated for same-sex marriage, spent more than $5 million in support of gay marriage in Maryland and Maine.
“This is a landmark election for marriage equality and we will forever look back at this year as a critical turning point in the movement for full citizenship for LGBT people,” he said in a press release Tuesday night. “Voters in Maine came to the common-sense conclusion that all people deserve the ability to make loving, lifelong commitments through marriage.”
Marc Solomon, national campaign director for Freedom to Marry, another prominent advocacy organization, said in a press release: “Today, a majority in Maine voted in favor of loving and committed same-sex couples seeking the freedom to marry. Now the commitment gay and lesbian couples have made in life will be respected equally under the law, celebrated before their loved ones, and called what it is: marriage.”
For gay-rights advocates, the Maine vote is particularly heartening. Just three years ago, a popular vote overturned legislation that would have legalized same-sex marriage in the state.
Although six states and Washington, D.C. legalized gay marriage before Tuesday night, they did so through the votes of state legislators or court decisions.
This victory will be touted as a contradiction to the conservative premise that those early wins were merely the result of liberal bias in state legislatures and the courts
