NEWSMAKERS 2009: Same-sex marriage vote: ‘This wasn’t politics, this was personal'
NEWSMAKERS 2009: Same-sex marriage vote: ‘This wasn’t politics, this was personal’
Melissa Hamkins, left, and Meredith Hunt sit at the dining room table of their 19th century farmhouse in Bowdoin, where they raise chickens, bees and vegetables. Though they are a committed couple, they cannot be legally married in Maine.
(Troy R. Bennett / The Times Record)
By Beth Brogan, Times Record Staff
Published: Thursday, December 31, 2009 2:34 PM EST
BOWDOIN — Most summers on “the hill,” Meredith Hunt and Melissa Hamkins plant a “huge” garden, tending it together during the long, warm days and harvesting in the fall. They also pick nuts from their filbert and black walnut trees, as well as raspberries from the bushes that “run wild” under the kitchen window.
Last summer, the garden sat fallow, alongside two largely unused kayaks.
Instead of gardening or kayaking, Hunt and Hamkins, both 45, spent their days — and nights — knocking on doors, calling voters and organizing volunteers, hoping to generate enough support to defeat Question 1 on the November ballot and maintain a legislative decision to allow same-sex couples the right to marry in Maine.
The couple, known in town as “the girls on the hill,” have lived in Bowdoin for 11 years. They’ve been together for 16 years.
For 15 years, their public persona was simply that of two women who lived together. In 2008, the two women “made a conscious decision that we were out” — that they were a loving couple who had long ago decided to share a life together.
“The ‘No on 1’ campaign was our second job,” Hamkins said one Saturday morning early in December, perched on a stool in the kitchen over a cup of chamomile tea.
During most of the campaign, the couple was optimistic as they coordinated volunteers from the Brunswick and Topsham areas.
“There was a palpable energy,” Hunt said.
Then, during the week before the vote, as the two led groups of sometimes 75 to 80 volunteers door to door, there were hints it might not go as well as they hoped.
On Election Night, Nov. 3, at a party at the Holiday Inn By the Bay in Portland, it became apparent that the people’s veto of Maine’s same-sex marriage law would prevail, and Hunt and Hamkins’ right to marry would be defeated.
“It was like a gut punch,” Hunt said.
Hunt, a nurse practitioner, and Hamkins, who works as an engineer, live in a former sea captain’s home atop a rolling hill on 105 acres. Occasionally, visitors travel up the driveway to tell them that they were born in a front corner room of the house where a midwife used to practice.
After 16 years, many already assumed the two were married, perhaps from the matching white gold bands they designed themselves and wear on their left-hand ring fingers.
Had Question 1 been defeated and same-sex marriage been legalized, “We had talked about doing something simple — maybe teaming up with other couples for an ‘It’s finally legal’ party,” Hunt said.
But after the defeat in November, “We shut down,” Hunt said. “It was grief, like having a death in the family. This wasn’t politics, this was personal.”
‘People understand marriage’
As the two campaigned throughout the year, they said they tried to show people that, really, they’re just like everybody else.
“There’s nothing to fear,” Hunt said. “We worry about finances. We go to work every day. We just want the same rights as everybody else.”
“One of the best things we can do is be out,” Hamkins said. “People who know someone who is gay or lesbian and see what their family is — and see what they go through on a regular basis — that’s what changes people’s minds.”
Perhaps the most devastating aspect of the loss, Hunt said, was that 53 percent of Maine voters — the percentage who voted against same-sex marriage — “basically said, ‘You’re not worthy.’”
“Every time we work on one of these issues, Meredith and I have to put our lives out there, for you to examine and write about, for you to decide, ‘Are these people worthy?’” Hamkins said. “You’re voting on my security — something that states what my family is worth.”
“But our families already exist,” Hunt said. “It’s not like (Question 1) was going to make it any more of an issue than it is.”
Also defeated, the couple said, were the legal rights afforded to married couples, including about 400 rights granted by the state and 1,000 by the federal government.
“We are legally strangers,” Hamkins said. “When we bought the farm, we had to do special things like joint rights of survivorship. Stupid little things, like who would put (property) on their taxes, or whose Social Security number a joint checking account is attached to.”
Lack of a legal right to make health care decisions for each other was never more apparent than the day Hamkins collapsed in Brunswick from pain following a back injury.
“I got called to meet her in Brunswick,” Hunt said, “but they said I couldn’t go with her. I had to go to our safety deposit box, get the medical proxy forms and then meet her at the hospital so in case she needed surgery, I could (consent). If we were married, all I would have had to do was say, ‘She’s my wife.’”
The rights afforded to a same-sex couple by a domestic partnership law all relate to issues that occur after a partner’s death, Hamkins said.
About 10 years ago, the couple held a commitment ceremony, in what Hunt calls “The Church of the Mother Earth.”
“We wanted to celebrate with our families that we are going to be life partners,” Hamkins said. As part of that ceremony, they signed a number of legal documents, had guests witness the signatures and videotaped the signing — to ensure as much as possible that they would minimize potential legal issues down the road.
“For us it’s a matter of trust,” Hunt said, but she noted that her sister, who is also a lesbian, “was wiped out” after her partner died of breast cancer in New Orleans.
A civil union isn’t enough, Hunt said, because “separate but equal” designation still results in discrimination by insurance companies and employers.
“Also, what do we call it — are we ‘civil-unioned?’” Hunt asked.
“That has no cultural meaning,” Hamkins added. “People understand marriage.”
‘Then they came for ...’
Throughout the “No on 1” campaign, Hunt and Hamkins were thrilled by the support received from friends, family, and sometimes from unexpected places, including the somewhat conservative town of Bowdoin.
“One of the guys on the Planning Board, from an original Bowdoin family, goes to the Baptist church,” Hamkins said. “His response was, ‘I’m not sure marriage is doing that well, I’m not sure I’d want to join in anyway.’ He said, ‘I know I go to the Baptist church, but it’s just because it’s around the corner.’”
They also have support from their families, although Hunt laughed, “My mother’s classic line (when she came out was), ‘What man’s going to want you now?’”
Since her mother’s death, she said, her father has begun dating, and Hunt said he tells women, “‘I have two gay daughters. If that’s a problem, we should stop dating now.’ Even in conservative families, people have gay children. My father’s a Republican, but he ... says, ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t get married.’”
Hamkins’ parents, of Brunswick, also worked on the “No on 1” campaign. In April, her mother testified at a legislative hearing that drew 4,000 people — including Bishop Richard Malone of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland — to the Augusta Civic Center.
Hamkins was raised Catholic, although she no longer attends Mass. Her mother does, despite strong advocacy by church officials against same-sex marriage.
Her mother testified that Bishop Malone did not speak for her. And she wasn’t alone.
Pointing to a group known as “Catholics for Equality,” Hamkins said, “The Catholic community is not lock-step with the bishop.”
“It’s very important to clarify the difference,” Hunt said. “I’m still angry with the bishop, but I’m not angry with Catholics. It’s the leadership. There were plenty of Catholics working on the (No on 1) campaign.”
“Even among the priests, there was support,” Hamkins said. “Yes, they were directed by the bishop to have a homily (about the issue), but they could take the approach of, ‘You have to vote Yes on 1,’ or they could say, ‘Vote your conscience.’”
Overall, Hamkins objects to same-sex marriage being framed as a religious issue.
“People think it’s a religious issue because the Catholic church is so strongly against it, but that’s a Catholic issue,” she said.
Following their loss on Nov. 3, Hamkins and Hunt remain committed to the eventual passage of a same-sex marriage law in Maine. They plan to work to support legislators who voted for same-sex marriage and worked against the ballot repeal.
That sets up another potential conflict in November 2010, as the National Organization for Marriage — which provided significant out-of-state funding to the “Yes On 1” campaign — already said it will spend heavily in Maine legislative races to defeat lawmakers who support same-sex marriage.
Hamkins and Hunt remain convinced that their hard work and that of others did make a difference.
“It’s been hard,” Meredith said. “There are times I’m depressed — the times I focus on the 53 percent. Then I feel like my fellow citizens have told me to shut up and get in the back of the bus. Then, some days I focus on the 47 percent and say, ‘Wow, we really pushed this forward.’”
“Meredith and I are in a position to speak about this because we have the support of our families,” Hamkins said. “Many are not in that position — we have to step up.”
Hunt referred to the Martin Niemöller quote that begins, “In Germany, they came first for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews ...”
The quote continues, “Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
Asking herself, “Would I have been one of those people who stood up?” Hunt already has the answer.
bbrogan@timesrecord.com
