Back in August, I pointed out that attempts to primary Republicans who supported same sex marriage had fallen flat, noting that:
You had your grace period. We gave Vermont time to get comfortable with same sex couples receiving some state recognition. That time is over. No one cares. Everyone’s moved on. There are more important things for us all to deal with than whether or not some lesbian couple in the Northeast Kingdom needs your permission before they can marry.
Just to drive the point home, I would like to quote Vermont First:
Based on preliminary and unofficial election results, it looks like 86 of the 89 House members who voted to override Governor Douglas’s veto of the marriage equality bill were re-elected to their seats… On the Senate side, 18 of the 19 Senators who voted for the bill (and not against the override) were re-elected — or 95%.
You’ve lost the battles.
You’ve lost the war.
Learn a lesson from Brian Dubie: be gracious in defeat.
In case there’s any question as to who’s on the right side here. You have this guy:
We have George Takei:
but here in St. Albans, the perception is that Jeff Young was punished for voting against the Governor’s veto of Same Sex Marriage after he had voted in opposition to the bill in the house. Those of us who wrote to him to make the case for the bill know that it was a real journey of expanded understanding for him, to which he did not come easily. It took real courage and honesty for him to change direction, and was not at all “politically expedient,” as some charged at the time. There is still a reservoir of bigotry in some communities of Franklin County.