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FARMINGTON – Pamphlets and booklets were handed out and accepted as both students and community members alike came and settled themselves in UMF’s Lincoln auditorium to hear the debate held Wednesday evening on Maine’s Question 1, a referendum that seeks to overthrow Maine’s same-sex marriage law, which was passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. John Baldacci in May.
Same-sex marriage has been a hot topic and the debate, hosted by the Daily Bulldog, demonstrated this fact as the sizable auditorium was nearly filled with eager ears.
“I was excited to hear pointed arguments from both sides,” said Kenneth Richards, a second year student at UMF. “I was interested in the different ideas.”
And attendees were not disappointed. The evening was started off by moderator Paul Mills with a coin toss to determine who would open the discussion. Representing the side in favor of Question 1 was John Frary, a retired history professor, and well known community member. Executive director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union, Shenna Bellows represented those opposed to repealing the law.
Bellows, speaking first, expressed her deep commitment to the issue, sharing stories of friends and neighbors she knew who had personally been affected by not having had the right to a civil marriage, and spoke on the reasons why same-sex marriage was so important “because it [was] about friends, and family members, and neighbors, and colleagues…”
Bellows also acknowledged and stressed that the same-sex bill was meant to protect the rights of everyone regardless of their beliefs because it was “about civil marriages, and equal protection under the law and of religious freedoms.”
Bellows stated that the bill for same-sex marriage was a movement to help end discrimination in Maine.
Frary countered in his open with a look back in history at a time when homosexuals did not want marriage because they felt it was too conforming to what society wanted. He pointed out the ways in which the view of homosexuality had changed over years from being understood as a mental illness, to a life choice, to a genetic predisposition, and likened the interest in same-sex marriage today as “a fad.”
Bellows questioned Frary on how he thought the same-sex law was going to affect those opposed to same-sex marriage. Frary stated it probably wouldn’t but that the passing of the bill was “a step in a series that would begin the process of [familial] degradation,” and that’s what those opposed to the bill were most worried about.
Frary pointed out that one of the main social utilities of marriage is procreation. Bellows answered confidently that churches opposed to same-sex marriage acknowledge fully, marriages where the couple are unable to procreate due to age or infertility all the time, and so same-sex marriages could not be argued against on those grounds.
Other issues were brought to the forefront such as the impact same-sex marriage would have on schools, to which Frary answered “We don’t have to debate this, we can just wait and see,” an answer which caused pause in the audience.
Both Bellows and Frary stood resolutely in their opinions on the matter. At the end of the evening Frary stated with an air of one firm in his beliefs that “the events will resolve themselves one way or the other,” while Bellows once again stressed that the same-sex marriage law seeks to be fair to everyone regardless of their personal beliefs and was about allowing civil marriage for same-sex couples, and ending discrimination in Maine, encouraging people to try and learn more on the matter before voting on Nov. 3, leaving the audience with a lot of information to consider on the matter.
If anyone had any doubts about the issue , Frary’s stance on the issue although no surprise should make it clear where you should cast your vote . ” the events will resolve themselves one way or another ” , thanks John , very enlightening .
The law that has been passed by the Maine Legislature and signed by the Governor finally gives the same legal rights and protections to same sex couples that heterosexual couples have enjoyed. As defined by our Declaration of Independence, that’s what “equal” means.
Yes, “events will resolve themselves one way or another” on November 3, as Professor Frary says. When voting we should all keep in mind the words of a long-ago July 4:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Once in a while I run into a “progressive” who gets the point. They don’t often agree, but they do understand it. These happy encounters grow rarer, and I prize them all the more for it.
If I’m right, and Edmund Burke is right, this process of casually slicing chunks of traditional culture and discarding them will go on and produce unpleasant and uncontrollable consequences. Time beyond my lifespan will tell the tale and I’m content to let the prediction be determined by events.
Nov. 3, one way or another, will be but a step in the process. In this sense it decides nothing. The gay marriage idea pops suddenly and without resistance of though into a multitude of heads and the recipients of this revelation discover that their parents and grandparents and everyone else’s as well were a bunch of bigots who failed to see what justice demanded.
No wonder they invariably sound so smug.
Although I must say that Shenna Belllows, although sh orter and better looking, struck me as resembling Bob Emrich of the Jeremiah Project. Both deeply decent human beings. Although convinced of her beliefs she seemed devoid of smugness.
what is it about EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL that is so hard to understand? please do not embarrass MAINE, vote NO on1.
Gee, Professor Frary, was gaining the vote for women “casually slicing chunks of traditional culture and discarding them [that] will go on and produce unpleasant and uncontrollable consequences”? It certainly was the traditional culture in the United States to consider women inferior, unintelligent, and unworthy of the vote. Some might think that fighting for and getting the vote indeed had “unpleasant and uncontrollable consequences”. The disastrous consequences” include women heads of state, secretaries of state, heads of companies, et cetera. And even my (a woman who now has equal rights) having my letter accepted without having to use a pseudonym or disguise my feminine first name. I think your viewpoint might, to coin a phrase,be called trogloditic.
At some unknown date JLB and Zap suddenly recognized that gay marriage as an undeniable right that no one not a troglodyte MUST immediately consent to. In other words they suddenly ceased to be troglodytes and ascend to a towering hight where they can look down on all previous generations and everyone who does not immediately concur.
A startling alternation of Schopenhauer’s dictum that new ideas go through three stages: 1) they are ignored; 2) they are violently resisted; 3) they are treated as selbstverstaendlich. The Enlightened Bourgeois skip right over stage two.
Nancy Pelosi gets to be speaker of the house and Joan Braun gets to write LTTEs using her own name. Perhaps its time to reconsider the 19th Amendment. As I’ve said, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Perhaps the culture CAN be tailor-made according to design. Perhaps not. We must abide by the result,