PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Cecelia Burnett and Ann Swanson had
already set their wedding date. When they joined about 1,000 other
gay marriage supporters for an election night party in a Holiday
Inn ballroom, they hoped to celebrate the vote that would make it
possible.

Instead, they went home at midnight, dejected and near tears
after a failed bid to make Maine the first state to approve
same-sex marriage at the ballot box.

"I'm ready to start crying," said Burnett, a 58-year-old
massage therapist, walking out of the ballroom early Wednesday with
Swanson at her side. "I don't understand what the fear is, why
people are so afraid of this change.

"It hurts. It hurts personally," she said. "It's a personal
rejection of us and our relationship, and I don't understand what
the fear is."

With 98 percent of precincts reporting, gay-marriage foes had 53
percent of the vote in a referendum that asked Maine voters whether
they wanted to repeal a law allowing same-sex marriage that had
passed the Legislature and was signed by Democratic Gov. John
Baldacci.

"The institution of marriage has been preserved in Maine and
across the nation," said Frank Schubert, the chief organizer for
Stand for Marriage Maine, which lobbied for the repeal.

For the gay rights movement, which has gained a foothold in New
England, it was a stinging defeat. Gay marriage has now lost in
every state - 31 in all - in which it has been put to a popular
vote. Gay-rights activists had hoped to buck that trend in Maine,
framing same-sex marriage as a matter of equality for all families
in a campaign that used 8,000 volunteers to get out the message.

Five states have legalized gay marriage - Iowa, Massachusetts,
Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut - but all did so through
legislation or court rulings, not by popular vote.

Portland resident Sarah Holman said she was torn, but decided -
despite her conservative upbringing - to vote in favor of letting
gays marry.

"They love and they have the right to love. And we can't tell
somebody how to love," said Holman, 26.

While the gay marriage opponents claimed victory, Jesse
Connolly, campaign manager for No on 1/Protect Maine Equality, held
off conceding until early Wednesday, when he issued a statement
vowing to continue to press the issue.

The fight for marriage equality will continue, he told
supporters at the Holiday Inn ballroom, where a buffet table
included a three-tiered wedding cake - with two grooms standing
side by side, two brides standing side by side and the inscription:
"We all do!"

"We're not short-timers. We're here for the long haul and
whether it's just all night and into the morning, or it's next week
or next month or next year. We will be here. We'll be here
fighting. We'll be working. We will regroup."

That's not what gay marriage opponent Chuck Schott wanted to
hear. At age 71, and after other gay rights efforts in 1998, 2000
and 2005, Schott said he's getting tired of taking his fight to the
polls.

"Before the final tally last night was even in, the No on 1
warned us that we'll have to fight the battle all over again -
soon. I wish they'd take their battle to some other state, and give
us a rest," he said Wednesday.

Roman Catholic Bishop Richard Malone, who urged his followers to
reject same-sex marriage, said he was grateful to people, like
Schott, who voted to define marriage as between a man and a woman
"as it has been understood for millennia by civilizations and
religions around the world."