Westbrook citizens voted, 2,989 to 2,417, against overturning a state law enacted to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination.
Results from Gorham and Buxton, as well as the statewide results, were not available as the American Journal went to press.
Question 1 asked whether voters wanted to reject a Maine law signed by Gov. John Baldacci this March protecting people from discrimination in employment, housing, education, public accommodations and credit based on their sexual orientation. A “yes” vote would repeal the law while a “no” vote would keep the law intact.
The campaign has been a long and often bitter battle between the Christian Civic League of Maine and proponents of an amendment to the Maine Human Rights Act that would prohibit discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation. It already is against the law to discriminate based on a person’s race, age, gender, religion or disability.
The state law allows someone who thinks they have been discriminated against to file suit. If the court finds in that person’s favor favor, he or she then has the ability to get a court injunction to get what they were illegally denied.
Jesse Connolly of the Maine Won’t Discriminate campaign said a strong “no” vote Tuesday would show “people understood the message that we were trying to present and that’s discrimination happens in Maine and it hurts real Maine people.”
The Christian Civic League had tried to make the vote about gay marriage, saying the anti-discrimination law was just a stepping-stone.
In a column in the Christian Civic League’s online newspaper, director Michael Heath wrote that Tuesday’s vote was a vote to preserve marriage and the family and Western civilization in the face of the “homosexual marriage” movement.
“Today we go to the polls not to cast just another vote, to elect just another official, or to vote on just another proposition,” wrote Heath. “We go to vote so that the institution of marriage and the family will not be wrenched from our arms…We are defending not just a political ideal or a moral principle. Today we are defending society itself, and in the process we are making history.”
During the day as voters left the polls locally, it was clear that other than the municipal elections, Question 1 was the main reason for many people to vote.
Getting ready to get on his bike after voting at the Prides Corner Congregational Church Jeff Borland of Duckpond Road said he always makes sure to vote, but Question 1 gave him an extra incentive to get to the polls. “I would have voted anyway, but I felt very strongly about” Question 1, he said.
Borland said he was very much against overturning the law. “I think it’s preposterous, and it’s an embarrassment to Maine,” said Borland. “If that passes, I’d be ashamed to live in a state that permits discrimination based on anything.”
At the polls in Gorham at the Gorham Middle School, Mary Eastman of Gorham said she also voted no on Question 1. “There are too many things in the world wrong now,” she said. There are “more things to worry about than that.”
Jean Pendexter, who also cast her ballot at the Gorham Middle School voted no on Question 1 as well. “We’re all equal as far as I’m concerned,” Pendexter said.
Although they both voted no, Eastman and Pendexter believed that yes voters would win the referendum because of the lobbying done by the religious right in favor of overturning the law.
Back in Westbrook, Linda Quigley of Merrill Road said she thought it was important to come out and cast her vote on Question 1. While she described herself as not very political, she said she had been following the debate on the referendum and said she voted no. “I’m not even sure why we’re even questioning it, why we’re voting on it again,” she said.
Outside the Westbrook Armory, Charity Hirst of Seavey Street said Question 1 was one of the main reasons she came out to vote. “I voted no because I don’t believe that anyone should be denied basic human rights,” said Hirst.
Voting at Gorham’s Masonic Building, Dorothy Philippi said she voted yes on Question 1, but added she had been on the border about the question. “Question 1 was tough to decide,” she said. “It was tough to figure out because there wasn’t a clear message.”
For Alan Richards of Gorham, who voted yes on Question 1 the choice was an easy one. “I don’t think that law is necessary,” he said. “I don’t see what good it would do.”
Additional material contributed by Robert Lowell and Victoria Wallack of the Statehouse News Service.
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