As of 10:14 pm, the vote to approve Referendum 71 is leading by a thin margin, 51% to 49%. Many votes still to be counted.
Sadly, it looks as though we lost in Maine. My heart goes out to you all up there. Except you fuckers who couldn’t be bothered to vote. You I shun.
More tomorrow.
So now it’s tomorrow.We lost in Maine–53% to 47%. Close enough to be both a terrible and a hopeful result. My hope is that folks keep chipping away at the prejudice and eventually it will be close in our favour.
Here in Washington, unless something truly bizarre and unforeseen happens, we’ve won. Yes, it’s only 51% to 49%, yes there are still votes to be counted–but most of those votes are from the more liberal counties around Puget Sound, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see our percentage rise a point or even two.
This is pretty astonishing when you consider what happened here just 12 years ago–the rejection, by 60% to 40% of a basic anti-discrimination bill. Think about that. We have won one percent per year to our side. One percent of voters, every single year, have gone from thinking we don’t even need to be protected from discrimination to believing we deserve equal rights when it comes to family law. That, right there, is worth taking a moment to ponder.
I wish it were happening more quickly but the fact is, it is happening. At some point soon our quiltbag nation will have federal rights–something very similar, I think, to Washington’s everything-but-marriage law, i.e. marridge. Then no one will be able to do what Jackson Memorial hospital did to Janice Langbehn and her partner, Lisa. No one will have to spend years fighting immigration, as I did (scroll past the sharks’ virgin birth–oh, just go read it). No one will be stuck in legal limbo like the people who got married in California and now find themselves with no mechanism for divorce.
I’m going to go make a cup of tea and ponder the good things in life and work out how I can help to make them ever better.
Nicola Griffith 
Sad news about Maine, it's definitely not looking good. Inexcusable.
Surely the votes will hold in WA. Hope so.
I actually thought Mainers would respect people's right to privacy…they're always so proud to say you can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't affect me. They really value people's independence.
.sigh.
And I actually though we had a shot here. I'm going to be looking at this place a little differently now.
Janine,
Really sorry for what transpired. There are still good and decent people among you, sadly they are not the majority, yet…
Janine, I feel for you. I wouldn't blame you for looking askance at everyone you meet in the checkout line or on the street, wondering: were you one of the bastards who took that away from me?
What will quiltbag Mainers do now? What's the next step?
Thanks for the update, Nicola, and for that interview. Very funny. “The quirkiest and kookiest…” eh? And I read photosynthesis and wondered, Hmmm, that sounds very odd, even for science fiction. (Sorry, I haven't read Ammonite yet.)
Janine, I get the sense that a lot of the anti-gay pressure in Maine came from out of state. Ironic for a state always so suspicious of anyone “from away.” The problem is, the outsiders convinced people it did affect them.
Is there still hope in the courts? It seems unconstitutional to discriminate, from what Gov. Baldacci has said.
Books delivered electronically at low prices are already a huge part of the reader-writer landscape. (For example, around 30% of my royalties are now from sales of e-books.)
[…]
After all, the only two truly indispensable parts of the literary landscape are the writer and the reader. In my opinion.
What do you think?
—>>> I agree to a point that these are the only designated groups who are indispensable. I'm not a writer but I have a brain that works reasonably well. I've been watching the publishing industry shoot itself in the foot for years.
We're in the midst of a particularly large bit of evolution. I think those folks who can hold on will be the the ones who go down in history as the people who hammered out a business model, and how to do this thing in real ways so that everyone succeeds.
It's such a painful process to live through, I've always thought that this real world was headed towards a Star Trek kind of reality. No matter where you are you can reach up and hit your little starship pin and talk to whoever you need to talk to. This is just an example to show that progress is the machine that no one can stop it has a life of it's own.
Everybody involved needs to figure out how to change and make adjustments in order to have as decent a life as possible working in their chosen field of art.
It's right now the voters who are responsible for the cuts to programs that smack of any kind of art because all they see are the dollar signs.
I think it goes to the schools and whether or not the money handlers recognize the disservice they are doing to the future generations of artists. That's the first place budgets are cut.
A lot of SF writers have hit this on the head with stories that tell of the burning of books to make room for whatever it is that they think will be better. Or the destruction of musical instruments etc.
It's awfully hard to get the concept of change as it applies to the now because survival is the main purpose of mankind. We only know what we need in this moment and trying to tear away from the comfort zones created in better times and that are fading away is just not something people want to or know how to do.
I think that is a really interesting statistic Nicola that 3o% of your sales are ebooks.
With the Kindle and other e-readers it seems to be the direction reading is going.
I know I'm headed towards the end of my road and I won't live to see how this works out. I wish for people to try to hang on and make the best of whatever mess this evolution makes as it moves along.
For decades we've been in the change of habits regards tobacco it's not easy to replace habits but that's what it amounts to a way has to be found that will allow everyone in the dying industries to survive somehow.
I'm not a champion of the fat cats who have been bleeding the public dry forever but I have to think of them as people with families who aren't necessarily interested in the family business.
It's a vicious, vicious cycle headed towards the extinction of pulp and gas and other stuff that wrecks the environment. As much as I love my writers I want them to see that how things are now is only the tip of the iceberg as to how this is going to turn out.
Money will no doubt go through it's own evolution and turn into credits or some such thing. Human nature hasn't been portrayed as very thoughtful or kind in a lot of SF but I think a lot of the portrayals are true. Unless mankind itself under goes a huge change there will always be crime.
I could go on and on about this as it's a subject I think a lot about but I think I've made my point. I wish you all well and don't forget to keep your eyes open for the best way to live your lives.
Sly
I just want NY to get on the ball about this: there are some real “conservative” people up north in the state, but I think they are more fiscal conservative (which still ain't great…) & less bigots. Least, the deal with Scozzafava made it seem that way.
I was hoping that if I colored in my “approve” dot dark enough, it would go all the way to Maine. So sad.
One the one hand I'm hugely relieved that Ref 71 looks like it's going to squeak by. On the other hand I'm dismayed that the vote was this close. Still so many prejudices to overcome. But I do believe that I will live to see something similar at the Federal level, it's just a matter of time.
I went through a lot to vote. My ballot never came in the mail and there were only three places in the entire King County that allowed live voting. I had to drive downtown to Union Station to vote. What idiot chose that place?! There's no parking! So I had to fight for street parking and then wait in a long line to vote. I would have said screw it under other circumstances. But knowing that every vote counted for the referendum I put up with all the hassles. In the end it was worth it.
Robin
I just realized; Maine = Lobsters!
Lobsters = Leviticus 11:9-12
Leviticus = what people cite to be bigots.
This joke is a classic, the one about God hating shellfish– but the fact that it is happening in Maine makes it MANDATORY.
Elbereth, oh, I wish that we could all just wish hard enough. I wish I wish I wish. The Tinkerbell approach to politics…
Robin, thank you.
Mordicai, if more people in Maine had taken the trouble to vote, as Robin did, I think we'd be smiling. It's getting people to understand the importance, getting people to care. (And, eh, I'm allergic to shellfish so it's all moot to me.)