After being approved in the Senate, and yesterday in the House, Maine's LD 1020 today returned to the senate and was sent on to Governor Baldacci who signed LD 1020- An Act To End Discrimination in Civil Marriage and Affirm Religious Freedom into law. Though it has been approved and signed in to law by the legislature and the government the fight is far from over. Maine law allows for a people's veto and the opposition has already announced that they will begin to solicit signatures to petition for the matter to go to popular vote in November. They have 90 days to collect approximately 60,000 signatures.
Today I want to share with you a few excerpts from the hearings & testimony held on 4/22/09. This was originally to be held at a high school auditorium, however it was determined that there simply would not be enough room to accomodate all of the people who planend to attend, and as such the venue was changed to the Augusta Civic Center. The crowd is mostly made up of supporters of LD1020 all wearing red. Equality was well represented by a 4 to 1 margin at this hearing.
Today, when I heard the news that Governor Baldacci signed LD1020 into law I wept. I sat in the kitchen at work attempting to write a run sheet and I wept tears of joy, I have spent the day listening to some of the testimony that was made on the 22nd of last month and I throughout the afternoon I have been moved to tears more than once. If you watch only one clip posted here, please, watch the first one.
-Matthew
1 comment:
Good on ya Maine...
It's about equality and love and what is right, plain and simple.
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