Ladies in Red

okay so it's not just a tacky eighties song. on April 22 thousands of Mainers showed up at the Augusta Civic Center to testify for or against LD 1020, Maine's latest attempt at a marriage equality/religious freedom law: "An Act To End Discrimination in Civil Marriage and Affirm Religious Freedom."



The mainstream media is doing a lot of work to make it sound like there was fairly equal attendance at this hearing for some reason but as an attendee I my impression was that the overwhelming majority of the people at the civic center were in support of marriage equality. I can say this because the organizers had supporters of the bill wear red (or they gave them red at the door) and, as you can see from my pictures (tho the pictures don't do it justice) there was a predominance of red. The anti LD 1020 speakers even defended their numbers by asserting that "most" of the supporters of the bill were brought in from other states (because there is no way that many MAINERS support civil rights).
































It was a rule at this particular event that no one could bring signs in. Not many people seemed to have brought signs but the ones who did propped them up on walls and bushes outside. Here are a couple examples of both pro and anti LD 1020 signs.


As for the voting, that is yet to come. We will just have to wait and see whether marriage equality has come to Maine.