Who’s behind depriving Mainers of equality?
May 8, 2009
I spent a couple of weeks in Maine in 2005 on the "Maine Won't Discriminate" campaign where we successfully upheld an inclusive nondiscrimination law from a "people's veto" so I'm particularly interested in how the process will play out with the recent marriage decision. Getting a newly passed law on the ballot follows a standard set of guidelines and doesn't require all that many signatures. The Kennebec Journal does a good job today outling the process. So who's behind the campaign? Two men came forward this week to initiate the process for collecting signatures: Pastor Bob Emrich of the Maine Jeremiah Project and Stephen Whiting, an attorney. Whiting is Secretary of something called Broken Wing Ministries, a group that “helps pastors in crisis who are broken and may have fallen while in their role as ministers of the Gospel. This also includes ministering to former pastors, spouses, and other Christian workers who have had to leave their ministries.” Anyway, a quote in the Kennebec Journal story from the Catholic Diocese of Portland reveals that political goals are a part of their calculation to move ahead with the "people's veto" on the November ballot.
Marc Mutty, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, said he and other opponents want the question to appear on the November ballot. That means their signatures would have to be turned in by early August, Dunlap said. Mutty was one of five supporters to sign the people's veto application. "We are full steam for November," he said. "It will be a huge advantage to be on the November ballot." That's because conservative issues such as a Taxpayer Bill of Rights and a proposed repeal of the excise tax will appear on the November ballot, he said.
In other words, they want to drive conservatives to the polls in order to advance their other political interests and conversely use the infrastructure already in place to turn out conservatives to their advantage.
