Tide may be turning on gay marriage

It's ironic.

Today is Election Day and I find that very little of what happens matters to me.

I couldn't care much less who is governor of Virginia or New Jersey, and a monkey could represent the 23rd district in New York for all it matters to me.

There is one race I'm eagerly awaiting, though. I have high hopes for the vote in Maine on Proposition 1.

Prop 1 was introduced by the religious right to ban gay marriage in Maine, and there's a good chance that voters there will be the first state actually to defeat one of these initiatives.

I'm not gay, and at my age I'm not sure I even have any gay friends who want to get married. In 2001 I voted to ban gay marriage in California but by 2008 I had come around to the other side.

There really are too many rights and responsibilities that accrue only to married people to say somehow that civil unions are a fair compromise, and for those folks who say gay marriage is a threat to traditional marriage, I no longer buy it.

Porn may be a threat, strip clubs may be a threat and that hot secretary in the short skirt may be a threat, but allowing two lesbians who have been committed to each other for 20 years to make it legal is no threat at all.

It will be legal in all 50 states eventually, as soon as the older generations -- mine included -- fade from the scene. It's no big deal to our kids. In fact, many of them can't see why anyone makes a big deal about it at all.

So I hope Maine comes through tonight and becomes the first state to say no to the haters.

It woulde be a great place to start.