‘Gay Marriage’ Loses in Maine, Kalamazoo Passes Pro-Homosexual Ordinance, GOP Sweep in Virginia

Add Maine to the List: Homosexual "marriage" activists lost in Maine, while pro-family advocates debate the best tactics to oppose counterfeit "marriage" and all aspects of the homosexual agenda.

By Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

Tuesday was a mixed bag for pro-family citizens concerned about the homosexual agenda. Here are the main election stories surrounding homosexuality that we are following:

• “Gay marriage” goes down to defeat in Maine — Congratulations to all who supported the effort to preserve traditional marriage in Maine! Despite a massive effort by outside homosexual activist groups to influence the vote, a homosexual “marriage” bill went down to defeat in Maine through a “People’s Veto” — whereby voters can reject a law by plebiscite. The YES on 1 lead was inching up in the late hours Tuesday and early morning. At 2:00 AM EST, with 87% of the precincts tallied, the Bangor Daily News reported that the “YES” vote to repeal Maine’s new “gay marriage” law was ahead by about 52.75 to 47.25%. In the final days of the campaign, Americans For Truth and MassResistance worked with Maine pro-family stalwart Paul Madore of the Maine Grassroots Coalition to educate citizens on the role of outside radical homosexual groups in the “NO” campaign. Madore ran a print ad featuring Brian Camenker’s popular article, “What Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ has Done to Massachusetts”; it reached 500,000 Mainers. And Madore’s press conference last Wednesday — though curiously disavowed by the pro-traditional-marriage “Yes on 1” group, Stand For Marriage Maine (SFFM) — received wide media coverage. That, combined with some hard-hitting ads by SFMM targeting the promotion of “homosexual marriage” in Maine schools, may have tipped the balance against the “gay marriage” law.
• “Gay” lobby wins in liberal Kalamazoo, Mich. — A pro-homosexual, pro-“transgender” non-discrimination ballot measure in Kalamazoo, Michigan, has prevailed easily by a 62-38 margin, according to the Kalamazoo News. Homosexual activists celebrated the vote, which was a defeat for a multi-racial, multi-religious coalition opposed to the “special rights” initiative. See this OneNewsNow story featuring American Family Association of Michigan’s Gary Glenn. Kalamazoo is a liberal college town and Glenn tells AFTAH that he estimates that the pro-family forces were outspent by the homosexual side by 10-1.
• GOP sweep in VA; last-minute liberal “bigotry” smear against Ken Cuccinelli for opposing homosexual behavior flops. — Virginia returned to its Republican-dominant ways on Election Day with a GOP sweep of statewide races,

  Ken Cuccinelli, slammed by the Washington Post for speaking truth.

  led by the state’s new Governor-elect, Bob McDonnell. That included a landslide victory for Republican  Ken Cuccinelli for attorney general. Just days before the vote, the Washington Post ran an editorial against the GOP conservative titled “Mr. Cuccinelli’s Bigotry.” The Post and fellow pro-“gay” liberals were astounded at Cuccinelli’s forthright stance against granting “rights” based on homosexuality, as the Post indignantly reported:   “Homosexual acts, said Mr. Cuccinelli, currently a state senator, are ‘intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law-based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that. . . . They don’t comport with natural law. I happen to think that it represents … behavior that is not healthy to an individual and in aggregate is not healthy to society.” The Post stated that “as attorney general, [Cuccinelli] would be an embarrassment to Virginia.” But the state’s voters paid little heed to the newspaper’s pro-“gay” political correctness, and elected Cuccinelli in a landslide.

• Homosexual activists squeak by with win in Washington State: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports regarding Referendum 71, which grants marriage-like benefits to the state’s homosexual couples: “Voters Tuesday were approving Washington’s new ‘everything but marriage’ law that greatly expands the rights of gay couples. In early election returns Referendum 71 was passing 51 percent to 49 percent.”

Debate over tactics

In post-election analysis, we will be contrasting and analyzing the messaging strategies of the NO campaign in Washington State versus the YES campaign in Maine — since both were fought in liberal states. The Washington State campaign focused on educating voters about disordered homosexual relationships, while the Maine effort — led by California Prop 8 strategist Frank Schubert — eschewed talking about homosexuality (except regarding the forced teaching of pro-“gay” lessons in schools) out of fear that such discussions would potentially alienate moderate voters. The Schubert tactic of decoupling homosexual behavior from anti-gay-“marriage” campaigns is also championed by Maggie Gallagher, the country’s most prominent traditional-marriage defender.

To the consternation of conservative pro-family observers who fought against legislation granting rights based on aberrant sexual behavior, Schubert’s Maine PR strategy actually affirmed the  “rights” of the state’s homosexual couples — with a TV ad entitled “It’s Possible” that approvingly cited the “legal protection” that homosexuals couples possess under Maine’s “Domestic Partners” law. Here is the controversial portion of the “It’s Possible” SFFM ad:

“Abandoning traditional marriage entails real consequences, yet we want to be tolerant of gays. Maine’s Domestic Partnership laws provide substantial legal protection for gay couples. Any problems remaining can be addressed without dismantling traditional marriage. It’s possible to support the civil rights of all citizens and protect traditional marriage at the same time.”

This ad and Stand For Marriage Maine’s “marriage-only” strategy touched off criticism among pro-family advocates who adhere to a principled approach of opposing any endorsement of homosexual behavior/relationships — tacit or otherwise — and who take care not to condone (proud) “gay” identity.

Despite the pro-family victory in Maine, electoral and cultural momentum remains with the homosexual activists.  Yesterday’s election results on homosexual ballot measures from Washington to Maine evince a continuation deterioration in support for the pro-family position AGAINST homosexual activist goals, including “same-sex marriage.” Maine is an instructive example of the downward trajectory of the pro-family position (a trend that compels Schubert’s “moderate” strategy, although his critics say his methods exacerbate the downward spiral): the northeastern state went from twice rejecting pro-homosexual “sexual orientation” laws in similar “People’s Veto” elections — in 1998 and 2001 — to passing both “gay rights” and “domestic partners” laws in the last few years, to finally rejecting homosexual “marriage” by a relatively narrow margin yesterday. Surely Maine’s homosexual activists will be returning with another attempt to enact homosexual “marriage” in the not-too-distant future.