Equality Fairfax

Most of the readers of this already know that Maine voters repealed Maine’s marriage equality law. This is a major disappointment but there were positives last night. It appears the attempt to repeal Washington state’s domestic partnership law may have been defeated though by the slimmest of margins. Voters in Kalamazoo, Michigan also soundly defeated an attempt to repeal that city’s non-discrimination law.

Though the result in Maine is disappointing, we mustn’t let it discourage us. In any movement there are always setbacks and while California and Maine are major setbacks we must take that disappointment and channel it into positive action.

One of the lessons from Maine is that urban voters supported our cause while rural voters didn’t. Unfortunately, there simply weren’t enough urban voters in Maine. Most states probably don’t have enough big cities to offset the large but more diffuse population outside the urban regions. As a community, we’ve done a pretty good job of educating voters in urban and suburban areas. Most of us live in these regions. It’s probably safe to say that most people who live in rural areas don’t have much contact with openly gay people. Until we can reach that group, we’re always going to be living on the razor’s edge in votes like this.

Here in Virginia, marriage equality still has a long road ahead of it but there is still a great deal of work to do to make Virginia a safer place for us to live. We need to continue to work to get a state law passed to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in state hiring. At the federal level we need to continue to work to pass ENDA and repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Progress on those issues will ultimately help move the marriage equality issue forward.