Maine voters can expect to see marriage on the November 2012 state ballot.
As of this week, gay rights advocacy group EqualityMaine had collected the necessary 57,000 signatures to place a marriage equality measure on next year’s ballot. Some of those signatures will prove to be invalid for a variety of reasons, so the group hopes to collect 75,000 signatures by the deadline early next year, said EqualityMaine Executive Director Betsy Smith.
On Oct. 17, Smith visited with the Lincoln County Coalition for Marriage Equality, who have been gathering signatures, and thanked them for their efforts. Later that evening, she spoke about civil rights issues to a gathering of the Lincoln County Democrats.
The Lincoln County Coalition for Marriage Equality has collected about 900 signatures for the 2012 ballot initiative. Their goal is 1000 signatures, but local organizer Dean Curran said they now expect to gather more. “In a rural county, that’s pretty good,” Curran said.
EqualityMaine’s effort began in mid-August, and in just two months they collected more than 57,000 signatures statewide. “We’re very proud,” Smith said. “It shows there are a lot of volunteers across the state that are very committed.”
EqualityMaine relies on an almost entirely volunteer canvassing force.
Smith has been the executive director of EqualityMaine since 2002, but has worked with the organization for nearly 20 years. She sat for an interview at King Eider’s Pub in Damariscotta on Oct. 17.
The 51-year-old Maine native grew up on a potato farm outside Bangor. She taught high school math for 11 years – first in New Hampshire, then at Waynflete School in Portland.
She’s lived in Portland for 19 years, with the exception of three years while her partner attended law school in Boston. They have two boys, ages 6 and 9. They’ve been together for 14 years and held a wedding 11 years ago, but because they are domestic partners instead of spouses, they lack certain custody protections afforded to straight couples.
“The practical benefits of domestic partnership in Maine are extremely limited,” Smith said. For example, a business that offers health insurance to its employees’ spouses, may deny coverage to employees’ domestic partners.
It’s her family Smith turns to when she talks about what’s most important to her. She said her family has made her a better director and advocate, and it’s important to her that she runs a family-friendly office.
“I remember being young and working constantly and there are definitely people here who would work all the time if they could,” she said, “but it’s important to take time with those you love – you need balance.”
Smith got her start with EqualityMaine when she moved to Portland in 1992 and the city was voting on the state’s first local non-discrimination ordinance. She volunteered in that successful campaign and hasn’t stopped.
“When you’re a volunteer, if you keep showing up long enough you become president of the organization,” Smith said. “It’s wonderful for me to be able to make a difference and work for equality.”
Smith said her years of volunteering and moving up the ladder taught her the skills needed to lead a nonprofit: allocating resources, fundraising, strategic planning, etc. Based on EqualityMaine’s recent history, those skills have served her well.
Under Smith’s tenure as director, EqualityMaine successfully completed a 28-year campaign to pass a statewide non-discrimination law in 2005. In 2008, Maine became the first state in which the legislature passed gay marriage and the governor signed it into law. Prior to Maine, the courts had instituted gay marriage in other states.
Voters repealed the 2008 law a year later, but Smith said the effort was still a huge step forward.
Smith said the first 28 years were a process of educating people about why they should support these issues – “why it’s wrong to fire someone because they’re gay; why it’s wrong to evict someone from their home because they’re gay.”
Passing marriage in 2012 is about getting a segment of the population that supports gay rights – and voted for anti-discrimination in 2005 – to equate marriage with fairness and equality, she said. “They’re almost there, but when a lot of people think about marriage, they still don’t think about is as a legal institution, with all the rights and benefits that come with it.”
Towards the end of the Oct. 17 interview, a diner in a nearby booth approached the table. His child has been with his partner for years, and “their relationship is just as strong and meaningful as mine with my wife,” he said, but he still wonders why their partnership needs to be called marriage, instead of a civil union, for example. “It seems like the easiest thing would be to call all of them – gay and straight – civil unions and if you want a marriage you go to a church.”
“It would be hard to tell all those married couples that they’re no longer married,” Smith said. “All the laws in this country are written for marriage.” It’s much simpler to include everyone in the existing practice than to re-write the entire system, Smith said.
Smith and Curran are both optimistic about the 2012 campaign. Polls show that a majority of Mainers now support marriage equality.
In Lincoln County, as in the state as a whole, marriage lost in 2009 by a relatively small margin, and Curran is hopeful that enough people have changed their minds. “If we’re successful in moving 4 or 5 percent of the population, we have a very good chance in Lincoln County,” Curran said.
