Irony in Maine

Same-sex marriages are legal in the state of Maine, and the nuts are doing all they can to put together a referendum to stop it. They say they've got enough signatures on the petitions, though we saw what happened in our county when most of the signatures had to be thrown out because of forgeries and irregularities.

Bill Nemitz at the Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram has a well-written and weird article about what's going on up there right now.

File this one under "supreme irony."

Twenty-five years ago last week, a trio of young thugs beat up Charles Howard and tossed him off a bridge to his death in the Kenduskeag Stream in Bangor – all because he was homosexual. If you were gay or lesbian in Maine back in those days, you had good reason to be afraid.

Now, as the campaign to repeal Maine's same-sex marriage law shifts into high gear, fear is once again in the air. Only this time it's not the homosexual community that's quaking.

It's their opponents.

"I know what you're saying – there is some irony there," agreed Marc Mutty, now on leave from his job as public affairs director for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland to run Stand for Marriage Maine.

Still, Mutty said, "We feel like the minority that's being discriminated against. We are being treated like pariahs everywhere we go."

Some might hope that's a harbinger of how many Mainers will vote this November, when a people's veto of the same-sex marriage law is all but certain to be on the statewide ballot. (Polling that consistently shows the question too close to call, however, suggests the referendum will be far from a landslide in either direction.)

Others might look to the complaints coming from Mutty & Co. and observe that victimization sells – especially in politics.

In a recent interview with Susan Cover of the Kennebec Journal, Stand for Marriage Maine's leader, Bob Emrich, complained that he and his wife have been getting rude phone calls at their home in Plymouth. People also drive by and holler insults, he said, and on a recent night at 12:30 a.m., someone "banged real hard on our door and ran off." This time, gays are not the target

This is horrible. A group formed to destroy people's marriages and -- gasp! I can hardly say it -- somebody played ding-dong-ditch with one of them? In the middle of the night? Why, that's horrible!

One guy beat up, thrown off the bridge, dead. One guy's door gets knocked on and somebody runs off. "There is some irony here," agreed Marc Mutty, whose name rhymes with ... never mind.

"I expected people to be emotional, but I really didn't expect not to feel safe in the little town of Plymouth," Emrich, a Baptist pastor, told the KJ.

Apparently he's not alone.

A recent e-mail to the staff at the Portland diocese, forwarded to me this week by someone using the pseudonym "M. Luther," offers this advice to the diocesan staff:

"For security reasons, please do not give the physical location of the SFMM (Stand for Marriage Maine) office to anyone. It's imperative that no one else know the location."

The e-mail also instructed staff members, should they receive any "marriage" calls, to "direct the angry mobs to the toll-free number or invite them to visit the SFMM website."

Sitting Monday afternoon inside Stand for Marriage Maine's headquarters, an unmarked office in Yarmouth, Mutty said he authorized the e-mail. The "angry mobs" reference, he said, was tongue-in-cheek and not meant for public consumption.

Asked why repeal proponents are so worried about their safety, Mutty cited "what happened in California."

During last fall's successful campaign to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage in California, Mutty said, "Churches were desecrated, donors were identified and harassed by the other side, and businesses (that supported the repeal) were blackballed."

You remember what happened in California? People who contribute money to a campaign, in that case Proposition 8, are listed in a database, it's public record. "What happened in California" was that some people looked up the names in that database and put them online, including anti-gay business owners and community leaders, and held them accountable. There was no "angry mob." You can say "businesses were blackballed," or you could say businesses were boycotted, or you could say people did not spend their money at businesses that donated money to destroy their lives.

Skipping down ...

But by complaining loudly and often that they've been called names and heard things go bump in the night since they launched their campaign, might Stand for Marriage Maine's organizers also be portraying themselves as an oppressed "minority" (Mutty's word, not mine) in the hope that they will be perceived as the victims this time around?

"No," Mutty replied flatly. "I don't think that's the way to operate. That's not the point we're trying to make."

Maybe not, but Stand for Marriage Maine's secretive ways contrast sharply with the see-through strategy of the Maine Freedom to Marry coalition.

Jesse Connolly, campaign manager for Maine Freedom to Marry, said his group plans a grand opening of its headquarters on outer Forest Avenue in Portland in the next week or two – and the public is invited.

"Our whole effort is volunteer-driven," Connolly said. "And our volunteers need to know where we are – so we'll be publicizing that throughout the state."

Beyond the logistical advantages to having an actual address, Connolly said his organization is "totally transparent" and looks forward to operating a "very welcoming and open office."

Strange tactic those gays are using, doing everything out in the open so people think there's nothing wrong with it. Very devious.

Here's the stinger.

"Maine is a much different place from California," Connolly said, adding, "I'm not sure where (the opposition's) fears are coming from."

Here's a theory:

Those who are trying to overturn Maine's same-sex marriage law are learning – many for the first time – how frightening it can be when someone gets in your face or dials your home phone out of the blue and calls you a nasty name.

At the same time, those who are defending the law are learning – many for the first time – that the more the social pendulum swings their way here in Maine and beyond, the less they need to live in fear.

What a difference a quarter-century makes.

I'm not making any predictions about how Maine's debate will turn out. We'll see if the anti-marriage groups are able to actually get people to feel sorry for them. You know they've got big funding come in from out of state Family Blah Blah associations, so they don't really need a store-front where the citizens of Maine can volunteer and contribute. Their best bet is probably to hide out, work incognito, use the old techniques of misconstrual and lies, and see if they can get a referendum passed so the state government will step in and tell people they can't marry the one they love.