Hi Cos, Ilse here - Have you ever been a Maine voter? I ask because I was for a fair portion of the years during which Maine, as a state, was ambivalent about gay marriage and I think the issue is more complicated than you present here (not intended as an insult). Maine politics, from my experience, is unique and complicated and, as someone who has been a voter in several states, Maine is the one that I believe drew me into participating in governance (differentiated from politics) more than any other. (not that I claim to be all that good at being a participatory citizen in general.)
Yeah, that's a jerk move on HRCs part, to say the least. This kind of think is a good chunk of the reason that political organizations that exist to be political really, really irritate me.
One of the things that I love about the way that Maine eventually (after wayyyy too much time waffling about it) legalized equal marriage is that it felt like a conversation between citizens and amongst the citizenry. Yes, some of the citizens behaved badly. It went back and forth two times, at least. There were weird technicalities (from what I recall). Out of state organizations became involved, etc. etc. I still can't read anything about any "proposition 1" without my brain going, " No on 1! No on ! means yes on equality!" There were tears. Letters were written to editors. It was a dysfunctional conversation at times. And, in the end, the state took the big leap forward as a whole. Not that everyone's happy with that, but I think that the conversation was important to have, culturally. Not just the result, but the conversation. One of the things that I really like about Maine's state government is that there are *so* many ballot referenda to vote on every year, not just names with a (D) or (R) after them. And I guess I never paid attention to what either of Maine's senators (both of which were, at the time, female republicans! Super unusual!) thought about marriage equality, because it was a cultural issue that the state had to decide on, because it's about winning hearts and minds through democracy, and the senators were off doing things in DC that were different.
Also: Politics is icky. Democracy is messy. So, when you put them together, is that kind of like mixing petrochemical based materials with organic (i.e. consisting of mainly carbon and hydrogen, i.e. compostable) materials so that you're left with something that you need to dispose of but can neither compost nor recycle? (like a cotton-poly blend t-shirt)
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2014-07-08 15:55 (UTC)Yeah, that's a jerk move on HRCs part, to say the least. This kind of think is a good chunk of the reason that political organizations that exist to be political really, really irritate me.
One of the things that I love about the way that Maine eventually (after wayyyy too much time waffling about it) legalized equal marriage is that it felt like a conversation between citizens and amongst the citizenry. Yes, some of the citizens behaved badly. It went back and forth two times, at least. There were weird technicalities (from what I recall). Out of state organizations became involved, etc. etc. I still can't read anything about any "proposition 1" without my brain going, " No on 1! No on ! means yes on equality!" There were tears. Letters were written to editors. It was a dysfunctional conversation at times. And, in the end, the state took the big leap forward as a whole. Not that everyone's happy with that, but I think that the conversation was important to have, culturally. Not just the result, but the conversation. One of the things that I really like about Maine's state government is that there are *so* many ballot referenda to vote on every year, not just names with a (D) or (R) after them. And I guess I never paid attention to what either of Maine's senators (both of which were, at the time, female republicans! Super unusual!) thought about marriage equality, because it was a cultural issue that the state had to decide on, because it's about winning hearts and minds through democracy, and the senators were off doing things in DC that were different.
Also: Politics is icky. Democracy is messy. So, when you put them together, is that kind of like mixing petrochemical based materials with organic (i.e. consisting of mainly carbon and hydrogen, i.e. compostable) materials so that you're left with something that you need to dispose of but can neither compost nor recycle? (like a cotton-poly blend t-shirt)