Hi, and sorry for taking a whole day to notice this comment and un-hide it.

I'm puzzled about why you think I presented the process in Maine as having been simple? I gave a very brief overview of what happened because my main point wasn't to describe the process, just to refer to it having happened... but even that brief overview made it look complex. Hardly any state had a more windy path towards legalizing gay marriage than Maine did (Massachusetts is probably the only exception - it was longer and more complicated here by far). And certainly nothing I wrote in this post depends on assuming that process or issue was simple. So, I can't come up with any good guess as to what you mean by "the issue is more complicated than you present here". Explain?

I've never lived in Maine. I have volunteered on some political campaigns there, and worked with organizers and activists from there, and have had girlfriends in Maine who I visited many times, all of which is not the same thing as living there but gave me different kinds of familiarity with the politics.