I think last night's loss in Maine was particularly hard because it was so close. There were so much hope and so much hard work riding on this. the early numbers saw No on 1 pulling ahead and i think many of us thought, this is it. finally! But around 12am, seeing the Yes on 1 number stay ahead by such a close but sure margin, and seeing no sign of it going down, i could feel my heart sink into my stomach.

I want to blame everyone. Obama, for not standing up for, for not even acknowledging the pertinence of this legislation. Instead, pulling his weight around some blatantly corrupt politician? (And let's not even get started on Don't ask don't tell.) The Catholic church for the incredible amount of work and contribution they put into this anti-marriage campaign, while choir boys are still being molested by celibate male priests. (Put some more effort into that, k?) The 52% of the Maine population, who stand so firmly against equality. Gay marriages will take nothing away from straight marriages. No straight marriage will be ripped apart just because their neighbors are also allowed to marry. And this whole crap about homosexuality being taught in public schools if gay marriages were allowed? Jeez. Yeah, I'm sure that's how people turn gay.

A friend of mine has once put this more eloquently than I:

"I would like to address the fundamental error on which you argument is built: that you are against equal marriage rights because you support the institution of family. The “family” versus “gay marriage” dichotomy is a clearly a false one. Gay people seek the right to create stable, loving, families, with the legitimacy that state-recognized marriage is uniquely able to provide. They have been prevented from doing so by those who, because they fear and hate those who are different from them, because they need to vilify the “other” in order to validate their own choices, seek to force gay people into lives of secrecy and shame...

You have taken this as an opportunity to present your message : you are less than a person. You are unequipped to be a husband or wife. You are unfit to raise a child. Your nature is fundamentally repugnant to God.

... This is not simply religious proselytizing. This is a threat, which you have directed toward every gay person... You are telling people with whom you attend class every day that they are doomed to burn in hell – that they are not your equals, or your peers, they are not deserving of basic human rights. They are, to use your language, a “problem of the world” that must somehow be solved."

For all my bitterness, I know we're on the winning side. (Perhaps that's why it makes the loss so much more bitter.) I know that we will look back to this moment in history with the same repugnance and regret as we have other civil rights violations. This per se discrimination against other human beings cannot last.

This does not mean that we can just stop campaigning for LGBT human rights and equality. It means we must work ever harder to bring about the change in this lifetime. To insist that our friends, our family, we ourselves, are allowed to love and marry freely in our own lifetimes. Call me optimistic, but I think it can, it must, happen. And with that hope, we go forward. we will never back down and We Will Win this fight.