After putting up Dawn and Laura's story yesterday, I was contacted by a friend of theirs who wanted to tell her story as well:

   ” My name is Audrey, my partners name is Bernie. We were so excited when the same sex marriage bill passed this summer, but we didn't dare to set a date knowing the closed minded opponents were setting out to get those signatures. 

    They speak of us as some evil individuals that will change the meaning of marriage if we are allowed to do so. Just what will it change?

     I read daily about all these politicians carrying on with pre-marital affairs, but this doesn't seem to change the meaning of marriage.

     I do not love Bernie any different then my Mom loves my Dad. I am dedicated and committed to Bernie and want to spend my life with her and only her.

     We get up every day, have coffee, read the paper, do the same thing our heterosexual neighbors do. So why do these opponents insist we are so different? We don't do anything any different, and we deserve to have the same legal rights!! 

     You people (the opposition) may slow us down, but you can not stop us!  We will prevail one day!  One day Bernie and I will be able to legally marry.

     We are proud of who and what we are. Nothing anyone says or does can take that away from us!”

Couples like Audrey and Bernie, Dawn and Laura, and thousands more are having to wait for their fellow Mainers to VOTE on whether or not to repeal our newly minted equal marriage law, before a single couple has been able to actually GET married here.

We have a law that passed easily through both chambers and signed by the Governor, yet it is sealed up and locked away.

While I sympathize, I cannot fully know what it feels like to be in this position. Even though I am an atheist and was married by a phone book JOP to a divorced man in a restaurant in Baltimore, my marriage is legal worldwide.  

No one has EVER demanded that MY legal status as married be revoked or forced into recognition as a domestic partnership or[civil union.

We did not have to “ask permission” from our fellow citizens before we wed in 1992, just file and wait 3 days per Maryland law. He filed; I picked up the license, and I didn't even have to show proof of who I was, nor did he.

No state in the nation has declined to recognize our marriage, deny us full marriage protections or rights, or demand that our children should not be considered ours under the laws.

I have never had to show proof of the marriage to any legal authority or on any application whatsoever. My word of being married is acknowledgement enough whenever we have bought a house together,  applied for insurance, or registered our children for school. 

                                                ~~~  

Another video has submitted, this one regarding the motives of “Stand For Marriage Maine”: