Roman Around

From the “It Happens Every Time” file …

There is no Mormon stronghold in Augusta. The “religious right” contingent north of Portland isn’t particularly strong. It can’t be blamed on Obama-supporting blacks who overwhelmingly take a traditional view on the matter. It can’t be blamed on the redness of the map, the rightness of its population, or the disproportionate funding. Believe it or not, it cannot even be blamed on Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity.

This is, after all, the state that brought Olympia Snowe to the Senate as the state’s “conservative.”

This is about values.

And so it was, that when it was all said and done, the great State of Maine – just like every other state before it – voted “no” to same-sex marriage. That’s thirty-one times that America’s voters have voted to keep the definition of marriage as it has always been. This is a reaffirmation of a value set that has existed in every society the world has ever known, in every culture, through the millennia – that marriage can only be defined as the union between one man and one woman.

This is not about the mainstream press – and particularly the same-sex marriage commandos, like MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow – not doing enough to bring the point home. This is not about the hatred of homosexuals, although it will be spun that way. This has nothing to do with the denial of equal rights or taking a radical, exclusionary position.

This is only about those people, from all sides of the aisle, from all walks of life, from every economic category, wishing to preserve that which has been so since the dawn of history. This is about people wishing to maintain and celebrate the very real differences between the sexes. This is about understanding that when those distinctions are minimized and deemed trivial, society suffers.

And yes, this preservation of the traditional definition of marriage comes from a region of the country that has been the most supportive of same-sex marriage, New England.

Go figure.

From the Associated Press:

Five other states have legalized gay marriage — starting with Massachusetts in 2004, and followed by Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Iowa — but all did so through legislation or court rulings, not by popular vote. In contrast, constitutional amendments banning gay marriage have been approved in all 30 states where they have been on the ballot.

The fact is, Americans reject radicalism – and there can hardly be anything more radical than the redefinition of marriage.

Incidentally, the term “gay marriage” is a misleading one.

Any homosexual can marry, as long as it one member of the opposite sex – the same “right” I am afforded as a heterosexual. That he or she chooses not do so is a different matter all together and irrelevant to the issue of “equal rights.”

Same-sex marriage is the appropriate term.

Good for you, Maine.

-