Yesterday was a pretty disheartening day for supporters of marriage equality. Maine’s newly-minted marriage-equality law was overturned by a “peoples’ veto” (a provision of the Maine constitution that allows any act of the legislature to be put to a referendum if a certain number of signatures are gathered within a specified window post-signing). The process worked, more or less, as it’s intended to. Unfortunately the anti-equality forces (urm, “marriage protection” forces) lied to the people of Maine to get out the vote. And in the process of raising an incredible amount of money from out-of-state activists, NOM is under investigation for violating Maine’s campaign finance laws.

It’s not at all clear at this point what the next steps will be. I’m hoping that no one decides to challenge the outcome of the referendum in court. The questions about NOM and its actions are independent of the process and the vote itself. Perhaps the Maine legislature will take this up again next term. We’ll see.

NOM is trying to pull this same stunt in DC to block the DC City Council’s vote on marriage equality. I hope they get called on the carpet here, too.