Gay Rights flap in Maine

[cantdog]

It ain't over, of course, because it never is. But 55.19% of the state voted to keep the anti-discrimination law on the books. (link to the Bangor paper)

It's the front page above the fold story this morning. This was never a campaign to change any minds, but really a campaign of mobilization. We did it.

I told you about it when it made the ballot. I've been working on it a little, and people here asked for an update.

 

[logophile]

It ain't over, of course, because it never is. But 55.19% of the state voted to keep the anti-discrimination law on the books. (link to the Bangor paper)

It's the front page above the fold story this morning. This was never a campaign to change any minds, but really a campaign of mobilization. We did it.

I told you about it when it made the ballot. I've been working on it a little, and people here asked for an update.

Yay! I thought about you when I read about this this morning.
Good work, Cant and co!

 

[Svenskaflicka]

There's a proverb: "People are never quite as bad nor quite as good as you think they are".

It's always a nice surprise to see people come through and do the right thing.

 

[cantdog]

The state was always behind this. The Christian Civic League, who brought the repeal to the ballot, talked about the threat to marriage. But there was one unanswerable question:

So, as a Christian, you say, it's very important to you. How can you say that my daughter should have fewer civil rights than your sons? As a Christian or as anything else?

I said this to many college students whom we were trying to mobilize to vote. I bet they voted away my daughter's rights in housing, employment and education with no qualms at all, but by God, they ceased to plead their case to my face after that question came at 'em.

 

[cantdog]

Fresh-faced little bigots.

 

[cantdog]

Sorry. Still feeling it, I guess. But they counted on the lack of turnout which characterizes off-year balloting to give their busloads of churchly swine the edge. And we told people that these were real people, that actual individuals were being turned away from housing, being fired from jobs, being tormented in high schools. This is not, we said, some pie-in-the-sky theory, these are real people being shat upon.

And such is the nature of men, which is to say basically good and decent if they have a chance to think about it, that we only had to remind them to go vote, and to trust them, in order to get this done. Thanks for your support, here in the AH. It gave me an audience to account to. I would have hated to report to you that I'd failed, that we'd failed, in Maine, to manage to defeat these people. It made me persist, I think. You guys are the best group of degenerate pornographers I've ever had the pleasure to know.

 

[Penelope Street]

It ain't over, of course, because it never is. But 55.19% of the state voted to keep the anti-discrimination law on the books. (link to the Bangor paper)

I noticed this morning when I read the news and thought of your efforts at once. Thank you so much.

 

[Deadwood]

I never under stood the Maine Christian Civic League anyway. The dredged this issue back up when out poor state (literally) is paying the highest taxes out of any state in the country, we have the oldest population and our jobs are vacating the state like never before and they want to drag this up? Give me a break. Lets get the issues back where they need to be and off this silly rampage.

I know high taxes were here when this State was part of Massachessetts and my Great Grandfather so many times removed dumped a bunch of tea in the sea and flipped off the King. Still, at least they did something about it instead of burying their head in the sand and citing moral issues that obviously has been hashed over before.

They need to get back to reality, but knowing them for what they are, I know they never will "get it." The rest of the State's Population did, so take respite in that cantdog and smile. It's all you can do.

 

[cloudy]

Way to go, Cant!

Proud of y'all.

 

[rgraham666]

Good on you cant.

I would love to see the looks on the faces of the 'churchly swine' when they croak.

They're standing in front of God, She gives them a slap in the head and asks "What were you thinking?"

 

[Svenskaflicka]

They're standing in front of God, She gives them a slap in the head and asks "What were you thinking?"

I love that image!!!! Gotta put it on a T-shirt!

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I know high taxes were here when this State was part of Massachessetts and my Great Grandfather so many times removed dumped a bunch of tea in the sea and flipped off the King. Still, at least they did something about it instead of burying their head in the sand and citing moral issues that obviously has been hashed over before.

They need to get back to reality, but knowing them for what they are, I know they never will "get it." The rest of the State's Population did, so take respite in that cantdog and smile. It's all you can do.

I'm sure that a big part of the anti-gay push is orchestrated by politicians who are tryting to keep our eyes off other, more serious problems. It's bread and circuses while Rome burns.

 

[cantdog]

I don't see it as quite so tactical. Quasi-Christians are attempting to overturn secular America. They have to be stymied at every opportunity.

The wall between church and state must be repaired, like the levee. Otherwise we shall all be hip deep in the toxic flood of quasi-Christian dominion. We are altogether too close to that already.

 

[Kassiana]

Too bad you guys didn't get to Texas. Can you make that your next battlefront? I have several depressed friends there who could really use your help.

 

[Guest]

Well done, fireman.

 

[cantdog]

This isn't strictly a bump. I have more news.

The group Heritage in Maine recently received a half-million dollars in federal money. $500,000 to to promote their "values-based" abstinence only curriculum in our local schools. Robert Emrich is the state senate's Republican chief of staff, and of course also a hardshell Baptist minister. He predicted that the intelligent-design curriculum would soon be debated in the state legislature.

So the next things are abstinence-to-the-exclusion-of information health classes and Intelligent Design science classes.

MCLU wants a member present whenever Heritage in Maine makes a school presentation. We want to know what Heritage in Maine is doing with $500,000 in taxpayer dollars -- when their curriculum does not even comply with state education standards. (They went there first, and the reply from commissioner Gendron advised schools that programs like that do not meet the state's health education standards.)

One of the commissioner's arguments was that health education does not simply educate children, it educates people. People now young, but who will in due course be adults. We teach kids to balance checkbooks even though they don't have their own checking account yet; the idea is, information people will need, people ought to have. By the time a student is in their middle teens, they are capable of absorbing lessons which may be applicable only in the future without confusion.

 

[Rhys]

I'm sure that a big part of the anti-gay push is orchestrated by politicians who are tryting to keep our eyes off other, more serious problems. It's bread and circuses while Rome burns.

I have a feeling you're right, Doc.

Thank you cantdog.