Friday, May 15, 2009

Maine is So Gay

SO I'm 'friends' with the Maine Freedom to Marry Coalition1 on the Prosopobiblion, and earlier today they sent me a message that started like this:
Women in Harmony, a 55-voice women’s chorus based in Southern Maine, will present its spring concert, “Seasons of Love,” in celebration of the recent passage of LD 1020, the new law giving same sex couples the right to marry in Maine.

It's a shame that when people think of the fair state I grew up in, they only think of lobsters and pine trees, and not about a phalanx of Smith Wellesley Barnard grads singing chorally-adapted folk songs and 'adapted' Passamaquoddy ritual chants in celebration of finally being able to marry their acupuncturists.

It's also another reason why I'm not too worried about any sort of Prop 8-type shenanigans, although, obviously, efforts are already underway. Maine's just too gay. Think about it:

  • 1)Assuming native Mainers are conservative enough to want to repeal the gay-marriage law3, their numbers have been dwindling as young people leave the state to go do anything else, any other place.

  • 2)Who CHOOSES to move up to the cold, ill-lit woods of Maine? Hippies, that's who. Hippies, many of whom are lesbians/have lesbian friends/had a lesbian phase. And especially since Rummy closed the state's military bases, honest red-state sentiment is bleeding away.



  • That's not to say there aren't fundies and homophobes aplenty in the Great State O', but I'm pretty sure they're completely outweighed by the little-l libertarians and the hippies/yuppies/yippies/&c. I hope.



    1Yes, the website is actually mainelymarriage.org, because why would ANYONE EVER pass up such a GREAT pun like that?!2
    2People from Massachussets, that's who.
    3And I have reason to believe that Maine conservativism is of a distinctly Yankee libertarian quality. A lot of the folks up in the woods don't seem to care what you do, as long as you don't try and infringe on their guns/lobsters/logging/&c.

    Tuesday, May 12, 2009

    Ha-ha


    “In 1972, the Clean Water Act, which called for ’swimmable, fishable waters,’ prompted a Potomac purging,” wrote Time. “But last fall, the appearance of intersex fish — which have male and female organs — renewed concerns about swimming, fishing and drinking the water.”

    ("Volvo Ends Up in the Gowanus Canal", New York Times)

    [Insert joke about Republicans here]