March, 27 2012, 01:23pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jackie Yodashkin
Communications Director, Freedom to Marry
jackie@freedomtomarry.org
917-620-4502
Maine Launches "Mainers United for Marriage"
Campaign Seeks to Secure Freedom to Marry at November Ballot
AUGUSTA
Today, Freedom to Marry joined Maine families and organizations in launching Mainers United for Marriage, the campaign to make Maine the first state to win the freedom to marry through a ballot measure, to be voted on this November.
Marc Solomon, National Campaign Director of Freedom to Marry, released the following statement:
"Freedom to Marry is proud to be a leader in Mainers United for Marriage, the campaign to secure the freedom to marry for all of Maine's loving and committed couples. This campaign has been more than two years in the making, as volunteers and organizers have been making the case to Maine voters about why marriage matters to gay and lesbian couples, in the process growing public support to a solid majority of 54 percent. Under the banner of Mainers United for Marriage, families and organizations, volunteers and our own staff will now ramp up and use every resource we can muster to explain to Maine voters about why now is the time to end the exclusion of loving, committed same-sex couples and their families from the protections and support that only marriage provides.
"On a personal note, I am thrilled that Matt McTighe will be managing this campaign. I've worked closely with Matt since 2006, when he served as my political director at MassEquality. Matt is smart, creative, quick on his feet, extraordinarily skilled in making the case for the freedom to marry, and relentlessly determined to win. We at Freedom to Marry commit ourselves to working closely with Matt and the impressive team that he's assembling in order to bring about a resounding victory in November."
Maine advocates collected more than 100,000 signatures and submitted them to the Secretary of State in January in order to get the measure on the ballot.
Winning marriage in Maine is one of Freedom to Marry's priorities for 2012. Freedom to Marry is providing strategic support, assistance in specific areas such as new media, and financial support through Freedom to Marry's Win More States Fund, launched last Thursday to raise $3 million to win marriage in key battleground states this year.
Freedom to Marry is the gay and non-gay partnership working to win marriage equality nationwide. Headed by Evan Wolfson, one of America's leading civil rights advocates and lawyers, Freedom to Marry brings new resources and a renewed context of urgency and opportunity to this social justice movement.
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U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday announced that he is commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 Americans and pardoning 39 people convicted of nonviolent crimes, a move the White House described as "the largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history."
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According to a White House fact sheet, those who received commutations "have been serving their sentences at home for at least one year under the Covid-era CARES Act," a law that extended the amount of time in which people could be placed in home confinement to reduce the spread of the virus in prisons.
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