No Gay Lobsters in Maine

Democracy is strange.  It’s good and all, but totes wacky.

A billionaire bought the NYC Mayor’s seat yesterday (barely, within 6% points), another billionaire lost in Jersey, a strongly Republican district in upstate New York elected a Democrat, and Maine let it be known that they will share a lobster dinner with a gay couple, just not a legally married one.

What’s so amazing to me about a democracy is the kinds of things people have the right to vote on.  The majority of Maine voters said to the state’s minorities, “We like you and all, we don’t want you to be killed for being gay, we just don’t want your relationships recognized by the state in an equal manner.”

Why should the majority have the right to vote on something that only effects the minority?

Below are a couple of historical cases that, if voted on by the majority, would have turned out to be a big stinker:

- Desegregation of schools in Arkansas (and across the south). Do you really think the majority of the residents of Arkansas would have voted to desegregate the schools in 1954?  Something tells me no.

- Women get the right to vote. In 1913, if all eligible voters were given the chance to vote on if women should have the right to vote, I have a feeling the ladies wouldn’t win out, since all eligible voters were dudes!

- The United States gains independence from Great Britain. Just a guess, but if the Brits voted in 1787 to grant the United States it’s independence from Great Britain, we’d probably be drinking tea and eating crumpets rather than coffee nowadays.

So yeah, thanks Maine, way to be democratic!