Last year I was going into a hardware store and saw a woman putting a pair of adjustable sawhorses into her car. I have the same pair, am very happy with them and wanted to tell her what a reliable product she bought. I asked if the sawhorses were for her or her husband. She said they were for her partner, who is a carpenter. These women have been together for more than 15 years, have children and both work outside the house. For extra income they buy run-down houses, renovate them while they are living there and sell them when the work is done. They have done this at least three or four times.

I came away thinking what a nice society we are developing where a woman felt comfortable telling a man, a complete stranger, that she was gay. It’s a social norm for straight people to feel comfortable telling strangers they are straight but we, as a society, have been denying gay people the same freedom of expression for years.

Now I ask you, what more can you ask of Maine families than to be loving, caring parents, to work hard and to be contributing members of society? These women have done all society asked, and more, and all they want is to be able to get married. We lost the last time we tried to gain marriage equality, but still all was not lost. I take comfort knowing we helped to make Maine the way life should be by creating a society where gay people feel more comfortable to say who they are. The 2012 elections will mark the time when all Maine couples will have the right to marry who they love.

Tom Waddell

Litchfield

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