Catholic Bishops attack Marriage Equality in Maine

In less than 60 days, Maine's version of Prop8 (called Question 1) will be on the ballot.

Frank Schubert, who ran the Yes on Prop 8 campaign, is leading the attack on our northeastern brothers and sisters, along with Maggie Gallagher and NOM. NOM is laundering money to hide the identity of the donors, which has led to an ethics investigation from Maine's election commission. (There's a reason haters want their names secret. It's the same reason, frankly,that the Klan wore hoods. )

A big leader in the pro-hate campaign is the Roman Catholic church. The Catholic church in Maine is in tough financial straits...closing parishes, cutting programs. But they can still donate against gay marriage, to the dismay of many Maine Catholics. The Catholic diocese is holding a second collection this Sunday explicitly to fund their attacks on marriage equality this weekend. And what will they do with the money?

How about fund advertisements with known lies? As should be expected by ANY battle-scarred veteran of the Prop8 war, the haters in Maine are insisting that kids will be taught about gay sex in schools if marriage remains legal. This was one of their most successful arguments in California EVEN THOUGH PROVEN UNTRUE and they are doing the same thing in Maine. The Portland Press Herald exposes the lies told by Marc Mutty's fundraising email (Mutty is on loan from the Catholic Diocese to the haters campaign):

the Rev. Bob Emrich of the Emmanuel Bible Baptist Church in Plymouth, a member of Stand for Marriage Maine's executive committee, said the group stands by Mutty's claim that the same-sex marriage statute will require "explicit homosexual instruction in the classroom."

One problem. Emrich and Mutty are wrong. Nowhere in the law do the words "school" or "classroom" even appear....

For starters, Maine doesn't "mandate" a "comprehensive family life curriculum" for its schools......

The statute also says that if any family-life education takes place in a school, "a parent may choose to not have (his or her) child participate" in the program...

As for any "explicit" instruction on homosexuality, [ Superintendent Jim] Morse said it simply doesn't exist – nor will it if the same-sex marriage law is upheld.

This should be absolutely familiar to anyone who followed the California campaign. Indeed, as laid out in this OUTSTANDING exposé at Daily Kos, this is completely in line with the deliberate decision to campaign with lies on Prop8. Rather than fighting about marriage, they made a cynical decision to fan paranoia. Not unlike "death panels" in the health care debate. Indeed, the strategy of both right and left in dealing with GLBT issues recently has been instructive in how they are dealing with broader issues. (I for one would prefer to STOP being the canary in the coal mine.)

The DK author shows how the key to the bad guys' victory was framing the question not about our marriages, or about justice, but about paranoid fears, generated by palpable LIEs about children and education. Coupled with numerous mis-steps on our side it was a masterful bit of swiftboating, as the author terms it.

The story is instructive because Religious Right professionals have succeeded in making it appear as if all people of faith are antigay and anti-marriage equality. Worse yet, they are using religion as an excuse to perpetrate lies and deception – to swiftboat same sex couples in the name of God, when in fact they are just advancing another end-justifies-the-means political scheme.

Now, they are trying exactly the same approach in Maine, and they will continue to do this unless and until we manage to expose their lies and dishonesty.

So what can we do? First, resist the lies: support the truth. Donate to the No-on-Question 1 campaign ! Faith groups who support equality should speak out, and not let Maggie Gallagher and her band of haters define what Christianity is. And Roman Catholics angered by their church's misplaced priorities should protest these attacks on their neighbors. Let's not let them win another battle of hate... keep equality in Maine!