What Defeated Gay Marriage Advocates in Maine Could Learn From Successful Pot Decriminalization Efforts in Colorado

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by Meg White

No one should be surprised by voters in Breckenridge, CO voting for the decriminalization of marijuana at the polls yesterday. After all, the area strongly supported a failed effort in 2006 to legalize state-wide. But for those of us who have lived in Colorado, the fact that the swing state became the first in the nation to have a municipality that voted to make drug paraphernalia basically legal is even less shocking.

Now, in my less than three years living in Colorado, I can't call myself an expert on the place. But I will say that being an election judge in the blue island of liberal Boulder during the 2004 presidential election gave me a sense of the deep betrayal felt by liberals after Bush's reelection. Furthermore, working in a small mountain town one summer, I saw the dueling populations of hippies and so-called "mountain men" bound together by their similarly fierce independence (and little else).

In my estimation, it is that independence that is turning the tide in the state toward decriminalization, and it holds an important lesson for the pro-gay marriage community in Maine, which suffered at defeat by a 53 percent vote yesterday.

The Breckenridge measure doesn't preempt state law, meaning that possession of marijuana is still illegal. But adults possessing one ounce or less of pot for personal use (and/or paraphernalia) will not be busted in Breckenridge. The vote was a landslide, with 73 percent supporting the change. The independent nature of the residents of the Rocky Mountain area, combined with the proliferation of medical marijuana dispensaries in the state after access to medical marijuana was legalized in 2000 made it a relatively easy prediction.

This Associated Press article frames the vote as part of an "anti-government mood" supposedly displayed yesterday throughout the state, grouping it with other anti-tax and anti-criminalization support. But I'm not so sure that's the reason for the vote, which seemed more anti-fascist than anti-government to me.

The AP (as well as just about everyone else looking at this election) seems to see the wins and losses in terms of red and blue. But that makes parsing out results in a swing state like Colorado fraught with difficulty and inaccuracy.

One could make a similar argument in Maine. With its two moderate Republican senators and history of Yankee conservatism, the fact that the state hasn't gone red in a presidential election since 1988 may come as a surprise. But with an independent streak similar to the one evident in Colorado, advocates in the Pine Tree State could learn something from those in the Centennial State.

The problem with the popular analysis accompanying the 2009 election results is that it is overly partisan. The failure of Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey is being portrayed as a referendum on the 10-month-old presidency of Barack Obama by Republicans eager to launch themselves into a strong showing for next year's midterms. The debacle in New York's 23rd Congressional District has been seen by commentators (including this one) as emblematic of the ideological struggle within the GOP.

In fact, the very failure of the far-right ideologue in NY-23 may be evidence that voters are ready to choose substance over party identification. I wouldn't say that the mere action of Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava dropping out and endorsing the ultimately successful Democrat Bill Owens over the ultra-conservative know-nothing candidate Doug Hoffman made the difference in the election. My guess is the result occurred outside of party lines, with voters supporting the most engaged and viable representative, rather than voting red or blue. The outcome just happened to be that a congressional district which has been in Republican hands pretty much since the party came into existence suddenly turned blue.

So perhaps branding is the problem. Maybe in advocacy situations it's better to persuade based on the facts of the issue, rather the whether it is red or blue.

The fiscal responsibility of marijuana decriminalization is clear. Less money going to prisons and more money going to municipal coffers is a no-brainer. A 2005 study estimated that Colorado could rake in $17.6 million in tax revenue if marijuana were legalized, based on state consumption levels at the time.

Similarly, the opposition to homosexuality is much more related to religiosity than conservative values. Meddling with people's affairs in their own homes is something that Republicans hypocritically seem willing to do when considering whom you should love, but not which deadly products you're allowed to buy. Also, I've pointed out before that the gay marriage meddling when it comes to both the Defense of Marriage Act and the recent gay marriage vote in the District of Columbia violates states' rights under the Full Faith and Credit Clause.

The conservative argument for same-sex marriage goes beyond privacy rights and anti-federalism. Allowing gay marriage would be a boon to the private wedding industry, while also strengthening social fabric via the supposedly stabilizing institution of marriage (two things conservatives generally favor).

This editorial from two Denver-based attorneys illustrates that the decriminalizing of marijuana is not just a liberal issue. The two Republican parents hit back hard against conservatives who blindly fight against decriminalization without a commitment to "stick with the facts:"

Republicans committed to our party's founding ideals of individual rights and responsibility should join us. During a FOX News interview yesterday profiling our efforts, we reiterated this commitment. We will not stand by complacently as our federal government wastes our tax dollars to continue a prohibition that costs billions each year and results in 850,000 Americans each year being forced into to our criminal justice system for marijuana-related offenses. In these tough economic times, we owe our children better than to accept the status quo.

If advocates in Maine could harness their residents' attachment to liberty, common sense and independence (with a healthy dose of facts about how legalizing gay marriage would actually add to state coffers and not subtract from heterosexual marriages), the choice might look more right vs. wrong, rather than right vs. left.

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Image courtesy of THCganja's photostream on Flickr.