OPPOSING BILLS IN MAINE: From the Portland Press Herald, Thursday

Same-sex marriage could emerge as a key post-election issue in Maine next year.

State lawmakers apparently will take up competing bills supporting and opposing same-sex marriage when they return to the State House in January.

One day after a Republican lawmaker announced a push to strengthen the state's existing ban on such marriages, a Democratic legislator said Wednesday that he will ask the Legislature to lift the ban.

Sen. Ethan Strimling, D-Portland, said he has put legislative staffers on notice that he will introduce legislation, if he is re-elected, to repeal the prohibition so Maine can recognize same-sex marriages that are performed elsewhere.

Strimling announced his plans a day after Rep. Brian Duprey, R-Hampden, said that if he wins another term he will propose a constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriages in Maine. The existing ban is in state law, rather than the Constitution. The ban has been on the books since 1997.

Both lawmakers, who face opposition in their re-election bids, say they decided to act now because city and town clerks in Massachusetts began licensing same-sex marriages this week under a ruling by that state's Supreme Judicial Court.

Strimling's Republican opponent, Robert Fisk Jr. of Portland, has taken no position on the issue. Duprey's Democratic opponent, Mary Poulin of Hampden, says other issues are higher priorities in Maine. ...

Strimling said his goal is to lift the ban so same-sex couples from Maine who marry elsewhere, as well as married same-sex couples who move to Maine, will be treated as legally married here.

He said he would support making it legal for same-sex couples to marry in Maine, but his legislation will not go that far because he's not certain if that issue should be addressed by the Legislature or the courts.

The reaction to Strimling's move was not entirely predictable. That's because supporters of gay rights are not united behind him.

Some, such as Democratic Gov. John Baldacci, say the state should first pass a civil-rights law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and allow events in Massachusetts and elsewhere to unfold before tackling the repeal of this state's ban on same-sex marriages. ...

Umphrey said Baldacci will introduce a gay-rights bill in the 2005 legislative session, resurrecting a contentious issue. The Legislature backed a gay-rights bill in 1998 and again in 2000, but voters rejected it both times and the issue has not resurfaced since. ...

Supporters of Duprey's marriage ban say the fact that Strimling is trying to lift the statutory ban shows that action is needed to make that ban tougher by placing it in the Constitution, which is harder to change than is a state law.

The Legislature can repeal any state law, but the Legislature and the voters must agree on any changes in the Constitution.

Duprey "is not operating under some kind of false concern," said Marc Mutty of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, because Strimling has made it clear that an effort will be made next year to have Maine recognize same-sex marriages that are performed elsewhere.

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