The vote brought to a close - at least for now -- the long and often bitter battle between the Christian Civic League of Maine and proponents of an amendment to the Maine Human Rights Act that would prohibit discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation. It already is against the law to discriminate based on a person’s race, age, gender, religion or disability.

Advocates of the law had hoped this time would be the charm. The amendment was passed by the Legislature but defeated at the polls in 1998 and again in 2000 - that time by less than one percentage point. The Legislature again passed the amendment earlier this year, but it was put on hold after the Christian Civic League gathered enough signatures to put it back on the ballot. Tuesday night, when returns showed 55 percent of the voters supported keeping the law on the books, backers were jubilant.

Jesse Connolly of the Maine Won’t Discriminate campaign thanked the crowd gathered at the Holiday Inn by the Bay in Portland for "making sure this is the last time that we vote on this issue."

He singled out Gov. John Baldacci for asking the Legislature earlier this year to take up the bill one more time.

"It was a courageous effort by a courageous man," Connolly said. Baldacci clearly took a political risk in pushing the amendment one year before his re-election campaign and at a time when the Republican right-wing nationally was gathering forces around the issue of gay marriage.

"Maine people have core values. They don’t care for discrimination," Baldacci said Tuesday night when asked to explain the vote. "Maine was founded as a free state. It’s part of our roots, and it’s reflected in the vote."

He agreed that some questioned his timing, but said, "when you’re confronted with discrimination, you have to stand up against it.You can’t just look the other way."

"The voters have spoken clearly and loudly," Baldacci said. "Let’s put these campaigns behind us now and start working together."

The Christian Civic League had tried to make the vote about gay marriage, saying the anti-discrimination law was just a stepping-stone.

In a column in the Christian Civic League’s online newspaper, director Michael Heath wrote that Tuesday’s vote was a vote to preserve marriage and the family and Western civilization in the face of the "homosexual marriage" movement.

"Today we go to the polls not to cast just another vote, to elect just another official, or to vote on just another proposition. We go to vote so that the institution of marriage and the family will not be wrenched from our arms... We are defending not just a political ideal or a moral principle. Today we are defending society itself, and in the process we are making history."

Tim Russell, the league’s legislative liaison, said Tuesday afternoon his group would not make any announcement about the election Tuesday night, but would hold a press conference Wednesday morning. True to their word, the league activists refused to concede defeat even as the race was being called by the Associated Press around 11:30 p.m. They said votes outside of the state’s urban areas were still coming in and could change the outcome.