Maine's Gay Vote (pfft!)

tony perkins (Pfft!) (Pfft!)

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11/05/2009

Tony Perkins and Evan Wolfson Debate Maine Marriage Vote


Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Evan Wolfson of Freedom to Marry joined Anderson Cooper last night to discuss the marriage defeat in Maine.

WOLFSON: Well, what happened is it's very difficult for a minority to persuade a majority to stop discriminating. And we came very close to persuading people in Maine to uphold the freedom to marry but didn't reach everybody in particularly the more rural corners of the state with the conversations, with the personal stories, with the making it real that we need to do in order to move hearts and minds. And we need to keep doing that work.

PERKINS: Well, this is unique, Anderson. This was the 31st state where voters have had the chance, they have stood for traditional marriage. But what's different here is you had a legislature that had special interest money come in, make some moves in the legislature. The legislature then created same-sex marriage. The first time we've had a legislature create it, followed by a vote of the people that have repudiated what the legislature did. That's very significant, because this law had been passed. It was in a completely defensive posture, they had to go out and work to overturn what the legislature had done. That's significant. And also, it's significant, because I can imagine as a former legislator what some of the conversations were in Maine today. These legislators who voted for this and in their districts, the voters went to the polls and overturned it. There's now an infrastructure there and there could be some political fallout to this.

Watch,


Posted 7:02 AM EST by Andy Towle in Anderson Cooper