Once again, after the November 3 elections, Americans have proved that the same baseless scare tactics have worked. It was on that day that the people of Maine voted to overturn a law, passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, which granted full marriage-equality rights to all Maine citizens. In doing so, Maine became the 31st state in the Union to reject same-sex marriages.

In order to defeat the law, which gave full marriage equality to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered community, conservative groups used a procedure unique to Maine, called the “People’s Veto.” This, given the requisite number of signatures are collected, allows any law to be put to a populous vote, requiring only a simple majority to be vetoed. Question 1, as it was posed to the people, read, “Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious groups to refuse to perform these marriages?”

The affirmation of “Question 1” does nothing but emphasize a major flaw in our democratic system. Ballot initiatives such as this one, Proposition 8 in California and Referendum 71 in Washington State, are a problem. By allowing these measures to be put on the ballot, we are entrusting the rights of a minority group to the majority. As 31 different states have shown us, it doesn’t work. The minority group, in this case the GLBT community, falls victim to the tyrannical will and governance of a majority that, in most cases, doesn’t give a damn. The majority cannot be expected to make a decision in the interest of the minority.

Because this is the case, the courts must often get involved. The U.S. Supreme Court did so with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which overturned the long-held doctrine of ‘separate but equal.’ Had segregation been put to a popular vote at the time, there can be no doubt that it too would have been affirmed. But did segregation’s popularity make it right or acceptable? Did it make it just? Of course not.

Much like the anti-miscegenation laws, which banned interracial marriage (as recently as 2000 in Alabama), time will vindicate same-sex marriage. In many places, it already has. The Netherlands, for example, has allowed same-sex couples to wed since 2001. When it was considering this legislation opponents claimed, “The sky is falling!” and it didn’t. The same holds true for Norway, Canada, Sweden, Spain, South Africa, Belgium, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut and Iowa. These places have all legalized same-sex marriage, and the sky has not and will not fall.

Many who argue against same-sex unions do so because they are trying to “preserve the sanctity of traditional marriage.” Dan Savage, an internationally syndicated columnist, author and media pundit, provides an excellent illustration on how “sanctified” marriage actually is. Savage, a gay male, along with his lesbian coworker, Amy Jenniges, went to their local courthouse to obtain a marriage license. He emphasized to the clerk that “Amy and I don’t live together, we don’t love each other, we don’t plan to have kids together and we’re going to go on living and sleeping with our same-sex partners after we get married. So could we still get a marriage license?” The license-department manager replied, “Sure. If you’ve got $54, you can have a marriage license.”

The “sacred institution of marriage” is a myth. As far as the state is concerned, marriage is nothing more than a contract between two consenting adult individuals.  Anything that can be done by an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas and undone 24 hours later is not holy and should not be treated as such.

After Iowa’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled that it was unconstitutional to ban same-sex marriage earlier this year, efforts were made in the legislature to amend the constitution to define marriage as only between one woman and one man. Why such a bigoted and blatantly discriminatory definition of marriage would ever belong in the Constitution, a transcendental piece of state pride and history, is beyond me and hopefully beyond you.

After same-sex marriages went into effect, Iowa’s Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal gave an impassioned speech to the legislature, in which he eloquently said, “last Friday night [April 24th] I hugged my wife. You know, I’ve been married for 37 years. I hugged my wife. I felt like our love was just a little more meaningful last Friday night because thousands of other Iowa citizens could hug each other and have the state recognize their love for each other.”

I implore you to take a stand with me and countless other Gusties, Minnesotans and Americans, in favor of equal rights for all people. But above even that, take a stand for and affirm the love that any two individuals share, and support marriage-equality now!