John Aravosis at gay.americablog.com has an interesting account of the interplay between the DNC, the Obama administration, the New Jersey governor's race, and the No On 1 campaign here in Maine.

One very interesting point he makes is that the 2008 presidential race had far more people cast ballots than the 2009 No On 1 race.

Deirdre's morning-after-the-election blog post had a line early on that really struck me: she mentions the "sheer disbelief that so many people have a worldview that is so radically different from my own."

I don't think Deirdre is ignorant, or stupid, or insular - quite the opposite of any of that. But her perspective is enlightening.

Well, it's over. I feel today -- and I heard several people echo this sentiment last night and this morning -- similar to how I felt on November 3, 2004, when John Kerry lost the presidential election. In addition to a sense of sadness and frustration, there's also sheer disbelief that so many people have a worldview that is so radically different from my own.

According to the Bangor Daily News numbers as of 9:25 am, here is the breakdown by county, and a handy map (made with the help of Microsoft MapPoint) showing exactly how little of Maine voted for marriage equality (remember, Yes is to repeal equality and No is to protect it):

I'm very sorry. Personally, professionally, everything. This is terrible. But it has to be said. Jesse Connolly just gave what can only be described as a concession speech at the Holiday Inn by the Bay in Portland. Sure, he said they'd keep fighting, and make sure every vote was counted. But nobody talks that way if they're winning.

Ran into not one, not two, but THREE No On One canvassers doing Get Out The Vote work on my walk from Congress Street to the East End Community School. This is what matters, on Election Day.

Steady stream of voters there, but no lines to speak of. Kevin Donoghue and Charles Bragdon are both shaking hands outside.

Secretary of State Matt Dunlap is estimating 50 percent turnout, which is unheard of on off-election years (Tweeters are warning other tech-savvy folks to stop tweeting about high turnout lest they discourage people from heading to the polls).

The Colorado Independent has the story: the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has instructed pastors nationwide to distribute anti-healthcare-reform literature in church and to preach against it from the pulpit.

I'm no Catholic, but with the Church's opposition to same-sex marriage (in an unholy alliance with Mormons and evangelical Protestants) and now the basic human right of healthcare for all, I'm not sure what being Catholic is anymore.

Another Schism, anyone?

I went to hear Rebecca Solnit speak at Bowdoin last night. She talked about a collective sensation of altruism, joy, and community that can come in the wake of natural (and sometimes manmade) disasters. She connected those experiences to the outpouring of public emotion that happened on and around Election Day last year, when Barack Obama was elected president, and the people who put him there -- who worked together to achieve victory not just for a man but for a movement --were moved not just by their electoral success but by their sense of civic engagement.

For the listeners on KCNW in Canada who just heard Deirdre and me talk about retrosexuals and fretrosexuals, here are the links to our stories. (And for our local readers, we'll post the link to the audio stream just as soon as we can!)

Here's Deirdre's piece on retrosexuals.

And here's mine on fretrosexuals.

Thanks for listening!

The National Catholic Reporter has a story about Pamela Starbird Beliveau of Lewiston, a lector and Eucharistic minister in her Catholic parish, who wrote an op-ed piece in the Sun Journal supporting same-sex marriage - and who very quickly received a letter from her parish priest saying she would no longer be allowed to lead worship services, specifically because of her pro-equality stance.

The National Catholic Reporter carried a story yesterday about the split in the Catholic Church in Maine, with many practicing Catholics publicly breaking from Bishop Richard Malone, who has led the anti-same-sex-marriage fight. (The Church has put up a lot of money, but so has a group reportedly closely tied to the Mormon Church.)

Wired has the story of a man we first heard tell of from local anarchist Paul McCarrier after the G-20 protests: a man who used Twitter to communicate and help protestors rally against an organization he believes is a threat to human rights.

No, this isn't those Twitter-fueled Iran protests, which the State Department famously asked Twitter to delay site maintenance to support.