As many have done before, I apologize if this has been the subject of a diary already. I did a search, but am happy to delete if it's redundant.
Last night, Jesse Connolly of Maine's No on 1 campaign was on Rachel's show. Before she gave him about eight minutes to discuss the No on 1 campaign and how well he thinks it's going, she did a great job of framing the issue and also comparing the Yes on 1 (anti marriage equality) campaign to what happened in California last year.
Hop below the fold for the video and a few thoughts.
First off, I'd just like to say how much I've enjoyed watching Rachel's professional growth over the past year. She's always been good, she's always been funny. But in the last year, she's managed to maintain both her heart and a relative smattering of smirk while also evolving into a very savvy TV personality who uses that smirk without relying on it.
Notice how efficient she is at introducing the topic and making the comparison to California. More importantly, I think she senses pretty early that Jesse is a bit, um, uncomfortable in this kind of spotlight. She manages to keep pushing him for answers, just as she would a conservative, while also making him feel at ease. I think this is just a great interview:
Just a few more thoughts. Connelly is a bit uncomfortable to start with, but through Rachel's prodding, he slowly reveals the multi-faceted nature of the No on 1 campaign. What I really like is how prepared they were. They knew even before getting to the legislature that this would be challenged in a referendum and they were already preparing for it. That's the kind of thinking Democrats and progressives need to keep working at.
I also love how efficient and professional the organization has been running this campaign. If I could only show you half the emails I've got from this campaign. They are always upbeat, on message, and proactive.
One last thing. As far as I've been able to discover, no referendum on gay marriage has ever won on the 'yes' to marriage side. Anywhere, ever. I might be wrong about that, and please correct me.
But we have the chance here, in tiny little Maine, to make a world-wide breakthrough.
If equal rights, marriage rights, gay rights are important to you, please check out the No on 1 ActBlue site:
https://secure.actblue.com/...
Peace
EDIT: Thanks to Alec82 in the comments for pointing this out:
AZ defeated an anti-gay marriage initiative in 2006. However, the initiative went beyond marriage and threatened to eliminate anything that was "substantially equivalent" to marriage. No initiative or referendum on marriage alone has lost. And that's the only initiative that has ever lost when put to a vote. Additionally, CO defeated an initiative that would have established domestic partnership rights the same year that they passed their anti-gay amendment...the second one that state has approved.
But also this:
....they approved an anti-gay amendment in 2008 anyway, so there's that.