Maine passes Marriage Equality Bill

Gov. Baldacci (D) just signed into law a marriage equality bill that easily passed both the state house and senate. After signing the bill into law Baldacci commented on his reasoning and change of opinion;

Baldacci said in a statement that while he has opposed gay marriage in the past, “I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.

“This new law does not force any religion to recognize a marriage that falls outside of its beliefs," the governor said. "It does not require the church to perform any ceremony with which it disagrees. Instead, it reaffirms the separation of church and state.

“It guarantees that Maine citizens will be treated equally under Maine’s civil marriage laws, and that is the responsibility of government," Baldacci said.

Maine now becomes the fifth state to provide equal treatment under law for all couples through marriage equality laws. It joins Iowa, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Comments (2) «

I think that gay marriage is a good step forward to give justice to a very repressed group here. We also need to remember other repressed groups. I would like to see the federal government do more to address global poverty for strategic and humanitarian reasons.

The Borgen Project has good info on the estimated cost of ending global poverty:

$30 billion: Annual shortfall to end world hunger.

$550 billion: U.S. Defense budget.

1

davidwaters on May 6, 2009 at 07:29 PM

And barack obama is completely silent.

2

drw on June 15, 2009 at 09:54 AM

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