Deplorable although the results of the gay marriage vote in Maine are, per se, it is nevertheless refreshing to observe the outpouring of outrage at the general concept of putting people's rights up for a popular vote.
(The idea of anything at all being too sacred to put up for a vote seeming to have become such a controversial position in this democracy-fetishizing age, after all, despite being more or less what the Founding Fathers were counting on to keep the government under control, re-revolution included if necessary. And, for that matter, the reason that a limit on the scale of the income tax to a maximum of 10% wasn't included in the 16th Amendment, although that outrage sure didn't show up on time.)
So, yes, it is time for much rejoicing. It would be nice if some of the people espousing this outrage at having to have one's rights approved in the first place would remember that it should be a generally applicable principle, eh? And, for that matter, that it applies to assorted means by which they can and have been taken away again by fiat in the past.
