Down the Slippery Slope

Yesterday Mainers affirmed our recent anti-discrimination law. On the surface, that sounds good, right? I mean, who wants to discriminate against anyone? Well in politics, often the words are arranged in such a way as to actually mean the opposite thing. That's exactly what happened in this case.

This vote was actually an attempt to repeal a recent law which gives gays legal rights to not be discriminated against. Let me first state that no one- no matter who they are, what color they are or what they believe should be discriminated against. Discrimination is an abomination. But this is just a small step that will lead to a progressive gay rights agenda in our state. The future will prove the truth of this statement.

What bothers me most about this referendum was its wording. If you were for it, you had to vote no. If you were against it, you had to vote yes. I believe there were many people who misunderstood their vote. Why did "they" have to word it this way? Because they knew it would be to their advantage. They were right and it worked. The vote was relatively close. If a hair more than 5% of the voters voted differently, the results would have been the opposite.

I believe those who are radically for or against any particular issue (often a minority) stir up plenty of votes while the largest percentage of the people are ignorant of the situation. The majority loses for lack of interest or understanding.

Now we're heading down a very slippery slope. Maine's in trouble if we don't watch carefully what our next steps are.