I have to say this hurts. I have to say this really hurts. This is not the blog that I wanted to write tonight. It’s hard to write this.

As of 1:00 AM, eastern time, with 87% of the votes in, the Bangor Daily News showed the results to be 53% Yes and 47% No.

Having covered this campaign for two months and investing my time and effort into ensuring that a No vote prevailed- makes tonight’s results very hard to take. Yet I know that no matter how badly I feel about this, I don’t live in Maine and I’m not gay. I feel so bad, so terribly bad for those couples in Maine who stayed up tonight to watch the results come in, or who will wake up in a few hours to discover what has happened. I know that they feel a lot worse than I do, and I hate that they have been forced by their neighbors to feel that way.

It is not fair. This wasn’t supposed to happen. So many people worked so hard to defeat Question 1. They deserve so much better than this. How is it possible that the side who depended on lies, distortions, and phobias would win tonight? There are so many couples in Maine who love each other so much. Love deserves better than this.

I keep picturing the families we saw in the No on 1 commercials and the people who gave testimony in favor of LD 1020 earlier this year.

I knew this would be close. I knew it was going to be tough. I don’t know what happened. How could so many people vote Yes? How could they treat their neighbors this way? How can they say they have gay friends, but vote Yes?

You know, the movie “Milk” was on HBO tonight. I watched about the last hour of it. I’d seen it before, but…watching it tonight, knowing at that point that things were not going well…watching the hope and the change that Harvey Milk represented…but also feeling so hurt that 30 years later we’re still fighting this fight and we’re not even close to finishing…

What’s going to happen next? Which state will be next to legalize marriage equality for same-sex couples, and which state might be next to have that beautiful right taken away? How many more same-sex couples have to suffer? Yes, things are changing, but…Maine families still have to wait. California families have to wait. In 45 states they still have to wait. And in 50, we’re waiting for full federal rights. THIS IS NOT OKAY. It’s not okay that some people are second class citizens.

I want to encourage everyone to write about how they feel about the results tonight. We need to speak out. We cannot give up. This loss hurts badly, but it is not the end. It can’t be. We all hoped that Maine would be the first state to vote in favor of marriage equality. That didn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. I don’t know what will happen next…but I know I’ll be there to make it happen.

~ Samantha