Maine joins the ranks of Marriage Equality.

Today Maine joined New Hampshire as another state where both houses of the state assembly have passed marriage equality legislation. It is expected that the Governor of Maine will sign the bill into law; whereas, New Hampshire’s Governor may not sign that state’s bill into law.

In the case of Maine, an anti-marriage equality group has already announced that it will attempt to strip other Maine citizens of their right to marriage through a ballot initiative. They claim to be acting out of a desire to “protect marriage,” but these groups have failed to explain exactly how stripping same gender couples of the right to civil marriage in any way “protects” marriage.

How does stripping fellow citizens of the civil right to marry the person they love in any way diminish, or endanger anyone else’s marriage? It is becoming increasingly evident that what these groups are attempting to accomplish is to write their own very limited theological notions into the code of civil law and to force other citizens to adopt their narrow religious views.

As more and more states move towards full marriage equality and grant civil marriage to same gender couples, religious zealots who wish to impose their religious views on others will have to spend more and more money. The LDS (Mormon) church and the Catholic hierarchy (and their financial surrogate the Knights of Columbus) will have to open up their checkbooks again and again.

In state after state and then on a national level to try and stop the passage of Anti-Hate Crime laws. They will try and stop the ending of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” They will try to stop the repeal of DOM laws. Those are several very fat checks! Tens of millions of dollars spent to prevent same gender couples from enjoying civil marriage.

Tens of millions of dollars that will not be available to feed the hungry, house the homeless, educate children, comfort the sick and dying. Donors may well ask: “What would Jesus do?”