Update now available:
http://tinyurl.com/yhkj9g2
Headline: Maine voters repeal gay-marriage law ''Maine voters have torpedoed a state law that would have allowed gay couples to marry. ... The outcome amounts to a heartbreaking defeat for the gay rights movement — particularly since it occurred in New England, the corner of the country most supportive of gay marriage.'' Cry me a river. Gay ''marriage'' has lost in every single state where it has been taken to a popular vote. It is only thru judges that create their own laws or legislatures that ignore the people that it is endorsed.

Rachel Maddow - put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Why should a civil right, i.e. civil marriage, be subject to a popular vote? In that case, inter-racial marriage would still be illegal in some states.

These freedom- vs. order-conservative culture wars are getting old. I don't care who my neighbour falls in love with and marries. Different race, different religion, same sex--it's none of my business, and certainly not the government's business either. Two points: bans on same-sex marriage are de-facto gender discrimination, and are first amendment establishment of religion violations, in as much as many churches would marry same-sex couples, but are unable to.

Bob marries Bill? Sue marries Jane? Picket their nuptuals if you want. But the state doesn't have the right to keep Bob and Bill and Sue and Jane single, if Bob could legally marry Sue otherwise. "I don't like it" doesn't extrapolate to "...and no one else should either, so we'll make it illegal."

Apparently the healthscam bill won't be voted on until next year also.Can anybody say cold feet?

This Miane decision could also gove Obama cold feet on overturning the DOMA and DADT.

I don't care who or what my neighbor falls in love with either. I do care, however, if a same sex relationship is equalized with God's/Nature's design. There is no biological sense to same sex relationships. Society and civilization itself is based on the family unit. Family equalling man and woman able to procreate and therefore having a responsibility to the future of that society. Every great civilization in history has fallen after these simple truths were forsaken.

From #3:

Why should a civil right, i.e. civil marriage, be subject to a popular vote? In that case, inter-racial marriage would still be illegal in some states.

Homosexual marriage is not a civil right. Neither is polygamy. Neither is pedophilia.

I don't care who my neighbour falls in love with and marries. Different race, different religion, same sex--it's none of my business, and certainly not the government's business either.

How about different age or how many?

bans on same-sex marriage are de-facto gender discrimination

Like bans on pedophilia are de-facto age discrimination?

But the state doesn't have the right to keep Bob and Bill and Sue and Jane single, if Bob could legally marry Sue otherwise.

Rather humorous and convoluted logic. If Bob could legally marry Sue otherwise, it means that marrying Sue is illegal. And the state does have the right to keep them single, just as it has the right to keep Bob from marrying baby Sally or the McDonald triplets.

If the moderator will allow me one more post:

I respect everyone's religious beliefs vis a vis homosexuality, even if they don't respect mine. A law permitting homosexual marriage doesn't keep heterosexuals from marrying each other, nor does it negate the legal (and, I would add, moral) validity of heterosexual marriage.

If two adults could legally marry if they were an opposite-sex couple, but can't because they're a same-sex couple, that's gender discrimination.

Allowing two adults to civilly marry doesn't open the door to adult-child marriage. For one thing, children can't legally enter into contracts, and civil marriage is a binding contract. A 12-year-old boy can't marry a 12-year-old girl.

God created everyone in His image, gays included. If you disagree with me, fine. Don't marry someone of the same sex, and don't countenance such marriages amongst your family and friends. Throw them out of your life, tell them they're going to fry in hell. You not only have the right to do so, you have the duty to follow your conscience. Just don't use civil law to enforce your particular religious beliefs, beliefs which I and others don't share.

If two adults could legally marry if they were an opposite-sex couple, but can't because they're a same-sex couple, that's gender discrimination.

Logical fallacy. It is no more discrimination than forbidding consensual adult incest or polygamy is.

Allowing two adults to civilly marry doesn't open the door to adult-child marriage. For one thing, children can't legally enter into contracts, and civil marriage is a binding contract. A 12-year-old boy can't marry a 12-year-old girl.

Straw man. Adult incest is possible (two cases in Canada and Australia bear that reality out) and polygamy can be between consenting adults.

Basically, your 100% wrong. Once you claim that there is nothing special about a MAN and a WOMAN you lose all moral and legal ability to discriminate between any adult "loving" partnerships.

I don't understand what people don't get about a "society" having rules to live by. Sure, they should provide the maximum amount of freedom within the framework of laws. Therein lies the interpretation of how much freedom.

People complain about not being able to do something. Well, you can't blow off a shotgun in your backyard in the suburbs and you can't build a tire plant in the middle of an apartment complex. There is always someone that thinks that some law is "unfair", but the idea is to have a framework that keeps society together.

Most people don't care who sleeps with who, but they do care that the definition of marriage is changed. If you allow the change to accept same-sex couples, you have absolutely no leg to stand on to disallow poly marriages. None at all. So you either preserve the idea of marriage in society or you completely remove it. There is no middle ground.

Under the law, a homosexual human male has EXACTLY the same marriage rights as a heterosexual human male. Either is free to marry a human FEMALE. Neither male, regardless of orientation, can legally marry another male; nor can either of them marry a dog, cat or horse. They each share THE precisely equal to marry a HUMAN FEMALE. There is no discrimination between the rights of one and the rights of the other.

Corrected:

Under the law, a homosexual human male has EXACTLY the same marriage rights as a heterosexual human male. Either is free to marry a human FEMALE. Neither male, regardless of orientation, can legally marry another male; nor can either of them marry a dog, cat or horse. They each share the precisely equal right to marry a HUMAN FEMALE. There is no discrimination between the rights of one and the rights of the other.