Word: states
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...rights groups heaped on Olson when he filed the case, saying it was premature given the heavily conservative bent of the federal judiciary. But she said to win across the country, gay-rights supporters must press the marriage case wherever the fight takes them, be it in courthouses, state capitols or voting booths. "It's never been an either-or choice," she says. "When the issue is one of social justice, we have to get the Judicial Branch involved. There is absolutely a role for the courts...
...another, after this vote, the people of Maine are not going to allow gay and lesbian people to remain strangers to the law," she says. "Gays and lesbians have met their non-gay neighbors, and they have introduced their families and their children." In Washington State, voters appeared to have ratified a law that was passed earlier this year giving its 6,000 registered domestic partners the same state rights as married couples. Cities as different as Chapel Hill, N.C., and Houston supported openly gay candidates for mayor, though the top vote getter in Houston will have...
...Maine's vote, much like all of the states before it, including California's vote on Prop 8 a year ago, will do little to slow the fight over gay marriage. Not in Maine, where Tuesday's vote was only the equivalent of a veto and can be easily reversed by lawmakers when they next meet, and not in the rest of country, where the issue continues to roil courthouses and statehouses alike. "Ultimately, this is going to have to have a national resolution," says same-sex-marriage activist Mary Bonauto, one of the nation's top lawyers involved...
...Maine was supposed to be different. To begin with, it was the first state to legalize gay marriage by statute, and with the governor's support. When the unprecedented new law was challenged, supporters hoped that political backing from the governor, coupled with Maine's traditionally independent mind-set, would provide the breakthrough that gay-marriage supporters have been waiting...
...vote prompted an outpouring of cash and other resources from far beyond the borders of the Pine Tree State. From New Jersey, the National Organization for Marriage sent a $1.8 million check to help defeat gay marriage. Gay couples in California and others still heartbroken over the Prop 8 vote sent lots of smaller checks to help bring the 'Vote No on 1' coalition some $4 million. On Tuesday, Californians manned phone banks to help encourage the vote, which Maine's Secretary of State told reporters Tuesday was exceptionally large...