Let’s see now: Before election day the Sun Journal editorial board, in its editorial, argued to the effect that human rights are best determined through popular vote. That is the democratic way, it was written.

Came Election Day and a narrow majority (no pun intended) of the people decided which adult, taxpaying citizens in Maine have the civil right to civil marriage, and which do not.

To the editorial board, that outcome was no doubt a cause for celebration, or at least relief. Of course, for such discerning thinkers, aligning yourselves with professional fearmongers, anxious homophobes and scriptural literalists must have caused some concern that you might be regarded as being disrespectful toward your fellow humans. One could hardly blame you for avoiding your allies; journalistic detachment can be a perfect cover. Then again, you knew that fear trumps hope practically every time in campaigns of the sort recently witnessed with Question 1.

Still, it must have bothered a bit. In the Nov. 5 editorial, great pains were taken in defense of equal treatment for all in the Maine of many colors. We’re all together, we Mainers — right? The Legislature must act. We must push for greater equality. Well, the Legislature did act. It passed a law for greater equality. A law the editorial board and its allies chose to repeal.

Please, no more blather about equal rights under the law.

Paul McGuire, Farmington