Monday, October 26, 2009

Maine: Put Your Money Where Your Marriage Is

Maine is currently battling Prop 1, which would overturn their new law permitting gay marriage. Two groups are up against each other in this fight;
Protect Maine Equality (Vote No on 1)
and
Stand for Marriage Maine (Vote Yes on 1)

The anti-gay-marriage Stand for Marriage Maine is very behind on $ raised, with only $2.5 million for their opponent's $4 million. So it's understandable, that they would criticize their opponents, saying that the pro-gay-marriage group has unfairly raised more than half their funds from out-of-state contributions.

EXCEPT that if we look at Stand for Marriage's stats, they've actually raised 70% of their funds from out of state! This means while out-of-state, the pro-gay-marriage group has just slightly more support, in-state they have over THREE TIMES the financial support of their "Stand for Marriage" opponents. This study goes on to mention that the average contribution of Protect Maine Equality is only about $400, while Stand for Marriage Maine's average supporter gives almost $4,000.

So what we have here is; a small number of wealthy donors attempting to take away the right to marry from Maine citizens, and mostof these donors are from outside the state! Something seems inherently broken about this equation..

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