Though the National Organization for Marriage is desperately highlighting letters to the editor from Maine residents opposing equality, one prominent newspaper has taken a stand for equality. Today, the Bangor Daily News endorsed Question 1 for marriage equality, calling it “a matter of fairness” and “a matter of equality.” The editorial explains why the freedom to marry will not impinge on anybody’s religious beliefs:

Some people may understandably oppose gay marriage for religious reasons, but — while the church has played a long and important role in marriage — they should remember that marriage licenses are issued by the state.

They should also remember that no one is trying to change their beliefs. Clergy will not be forced to perform marriage ceremonies or bless gay couples. The legal freedom that protects clergy, allowing them the ability to choose whom to join in marriage, is the same legal freedom gay couples are seeking to be able to marry. Extending legal protections to the few does not hurt the majority.

The endorsement also notes that civil unions are insufficient recognition for same-sex couples, because marriage is the “most accurate representation” of “public recognition of the private love.” If equality passes in Maine next week, it will be the first time a state recognizes same-sex marriage thanks to a grassroots ballot initiative effort. The Bangor Daily News hopes that “voters affirm Maine as a place where people value the rights of all their neighbors equally.”

A poll last month showed that 56.6 percent of Maine voters will do just that.

Father Richard T. Lawrence

As many Catholic leaders have done, Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori required all parish priests to read a letter from him this past Sunday denouncing marriage equality and encouraging parishioners to vote no on Maryland’s Question 6. When Father Richard T. Lawrence read the letter this past weekend at Baltimore’s St. Vincent de Paul church, he then added his own thoughts, breaking from Lori and the Vatican to suggest that voting for marriage equality may be the Catholic thing to do.

According to BuzzFeed, the response was swift. Lori asked that Lawrence’s homily be removed from the church’s website, though no other punitive action has been taken. Here are some excerpts from Lawrence’s remarks as reported in the Catholic Reporter:

LAWRENCE: I will continue to stand in genuine awe of all those couples — straight, gay and lesbian — hose day-to-day, year-to-year, and decade-to-decade faithfulness to each other is to me a sacrament, a believable embodied sign, of the absolute faithfulness of God to us all. [...]

While the federal courts respect the rights of churches not to hire anyone for a ministerial position whose marriage does not comply with the laws of that church, we do hire and pay spousal benefits, such as medical insurance, for employees whose marriages are not valid in the eyes of church law. It seems to me, therefore, that even if we do not believe that gay marriage ever could or should be allowed in the church, we could live with a provision that allows civil marriage of gay and lesbian couples. Personally, however, I would go farther than that. [...]

Could we not then say that their devotion to and support of each other … could be recognized by the church as a valid sacrament of God’s unrelenting faithfulness to us just as much as the union of an elderly straight couple? Neither will procreate children, but both can be sacraments of God’s faithfulness in the living out of their commitment to each other.

Lawrence said he will not perform same-sex marriages, but he will continue to attend the weddings of gays and lesbians “whom I love and support.” He encouraged his parishioners to rethink Lori’s suggested vote:

But could not civil law be allowed to progress where church law cannot go, at least not yet? Personally, I believe that it can and that it should. So there you have it: the official teaching of the church and my personal reflections.

The St. Vincent parishioners responded with a standing ovation.