Friday, September 19, 1997
Petitions force vote on gay rights
- Both sides honing their campaign messages
- Well-organized campaign brings success
- So-called people's veto rarely used in Maine
- Carolyn Cosby leaves state
By Steven G. Vegh Four months after Maine's gay-rights law was signed by the governor, two Christian groups announced Thursday that they had enough petition signatures to force a statewide referendum - a ''people's veto'' - aimed at rescinding the new law.
Staff Writer
©Copyright 1997 Guy Gannett Communications
Organizers from the Christian Civic League of Maine and the Christian Coalition of Maine said they had gathered 58,750 signatures. They needed a minimum of 51,131 to set the referendum process in motion.
The signatures still need to be validated by the secretary of state. But the apparent success of the petition drive surprised its organizers - and its opponents - because the campaign had moved sluggishly throughout the summer.
''It's a miracle of God,'' Michael S. Heath, executive director of the Christian Civic League, said at a news conference at the State House. ''Amen,'' responded several of the three dozen petition supporters who stood behind him.
Heath said only 33,000 signatures had been collected by last week, but supporters rallied to produce another 25,000 signatures in the last five days. The campaign was limited by law to 90 days.
The gay-rights law will not take effect during the referendum process. The law, approved by legislators last spring, forbids discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in credit, employment, housing and public accommodation.
If the secretary of state finds the veto campaign gathered enough signatures, Gov. Angus King will schedule an election for sometime between December and April.
Assistant Secretary of State Rebecca Wyke estimated a special election would cost the state $95,000. Towns and cities would have to pay their own costs of holding the election.
Gay-rights advocates were bitterly disappointed by the petition drive's seeming success, which came almost two years after an anti-gay rights initiative known as Question 1 was defeated in a statewide referendum.
''I'm troubled Michael Heath and the Christian Civic League can't take no for an answer,'' said the Rev. Marvin Ellison, co-chairman of the Religious Coalition Against Discrimination.
''The Question 1 referendum was an opportunity for citizens of Maine to say they didn't want to discriminate against gay and lesbian Mainers,'' Ellison said. ''I wish Michael Heath would take voters more seriously.''
Jonathan Lee, executive director of Maine Speakout Project for Equal Rights, said he was concerned about possible anti-gay repercussions from the veto campaign. ''It does stir up some hatred, among those inclined to go beat up somebody,'' he said.
''It is not and never has been about hate, bigotry or discrimination,'' Heath said of the veto campaign.
Rather, he called the gay-rights legislation a threat to ''the civil liberties of business owners, parents and even charitable organizations that decline to celebrate homosexuality.''
If a special election is scheduled, the veto campaign will have two major themes. One is a familiar issue from the Question 1 debate: the notion of ''special rights'' for gays and lesbians.
''Our surveys show 86 percent of the people in Maine are against giving special rights to homosexuals,'' Paul Volle of the Christian Coalition of Maine said Thursday.
Gay-rights opponents assert that homosexuals do not deserve explicit statutory protection from discrimination, or ''special rights,'' because gays and lesbians do not suffer the same hardships and deprivations faced by minorities distinguished by race, religion, ethnicity and other familiar traits.
Sexual morality is the second major theme. This issue also was present with Question 1. But morality was a secondary theme because Concerned Maine Families, which organized the 1995 initiative, emphasized the special-rights question.
Heath made clear Thursday that morality is at the core of the veto campaign.
''I don't think it's possible for the nation or state to understand this issue apart from a fair and meaningful understanding of biblical morality,'' he said.
The veto campaign is likely to draw groups and individuals familiar from the Question 1 debate.
The Maine Chamber of Commerce and Industry opposed Question 1 in 1995. The organization is now the Maine Business Chamber and Alliance, but executive director Chris Hall predicted it would also publicly oppose the veto.
Similarly, Duane ''Buzz'' Fitzgerald was a public opponent of Question 1 while head of Bath Iron Works. He has since retired from BIW and is a business consultant.
Nonetheless, Sue Fitzgerald, his wife, said she and her husband planned to work against the veto and help raise money for its opponents.
The Maine Council of Churches will oppose the veto, just as it opposed Question 1, said Executive Director Tom Ewell.
However, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Maine, which opposed Question 1, will remain neutral in a veto campaign.
Spokesman Marc Mutty said the diocese opposed Question 1 because the initiative would have banned any group, not just homosexuals, from being added as a protected class under the Maine Human Rights Act.
The recent gay-rights legislation is not only much different; the diocese is unsure exactly what the statute would do, Mutty said.
''The vagueness in the statute continues to raise questions in our mind as to how this law is going to be applied,'' Mutty said. He said legislators who backed the gay-rights bill have told him they don't expect to know how the law will be applied until it is tested in court.
Additionally, Mutty said the law and its supporters are unclear on whether it simply protects homosexuals from discrimination, or also inherently endorses same-gender sexual activity. The church opposes homosexual sex acts, though it does not condemn homosexuals.
to top Both sides honing their campaign messages
Getting out the vote is key to deciding an issue in which most people have made up their minds.By Joshua L. Weinstein Their words were the same. Only the tone was different.
Staff Writer''Here we go again!'' said an upbeat Paul Madore, clearly relishing the prospect of an election to repeal a law giving civil-rights protection to gays and lesbians.
In Portland, Michael Quint, an openly gay member of the state House of Representatives, let out a sigh.
''Here we go again,'' he said, his words heavy. ''It's discouraging. It's really discouraging.''
On Thursday, the Christian Civic League of Maine announced it had gathered enough signatures on a petition to force a special statewide election to overturn Maine's gay-rights protections.
The campaign will be unlike any in recent history.
There will be no candidates, merely an issue: whether Maine's human-rights law should prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. The election will be held sometime between December and April, not a traditional time for voting.
That means the side that is better organized will win, experts say.
Voters will be ''people who have already made up their mind, and more importantly, they feel very, very strongly for or against the issue, so it's really not an exercise in any kind of public discourse,'' said Kathleen Watters, associate professor of political science at the University of Dayton in Ohio and a specialist in voting behavior. ''It becomes an exercise in who can get out their supporters.''
Kenneth Wald, a professor of political science at the University of Florida and co-author of ''Private Lives, Public Conflicts: The Politics of Gay Rights in American Communities,'' agrees.
''The opponents of gay rights are typically centered in certain types of fundamentalist churches, and have a built-in advantage,'' he said. ''They have a pre-existing structure through their churches . . . whereas the proponents of gay rights don't have anything near that kind of original advantage.''
Although supporters of gay rights have won before in Maine, he said, ''the reality is that gay rights is one of those things that does not typically do well at the polls.''
Maine Won't Discriminate, the Portland-based group that successfully fought 1995's anti-gay rights Question 1, is already planning its work.
Pat Peard, a founder of Maine Won't Discriminate, said the group plans to challenge the signatures collected by the Christian Civic League.
If the signatures are valid and the election is held, ''we are confident that Maine still won't discriminate,'' Peard said.
Madore, who led a successful drive to overturn Lewiston's gay-rights ordinance in 1993, said the campaign to repeal the gay-rights law will try to convince people that it's not a question of equal rights, rather one of special rights.
''Maine does not discriminate,'' he said. ''Making moral distinctions is not discrimination. . . . This is not a case of granting equal rights. It's creating a minority class. . . . High on the wish list of a suspect class is affirmative action and job quotas.''
Carolyn Cosby, who led the Question 1 effort, said the question ''will come down to money and message.''
The message, she said, must be special rights and jobs.
''It's the same issue it has always been,'' she said. ''This is about whether we're going to give special status and thereby give job advantages to anyone who's willing to proclaim their homosexuality.''
David Smith of the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign said Maine people demonstrated their support of extending civil-rights protections to gays and lesbians when they defeated Question 1.
''This has the potential to backfire on the proponents of this, because citizens of Maine thought this issue was settled, and this group is clearly attempting to promote discrimination - something that the Legislature and the governor had spoken on.''
to top Three weeks ago, organizers of the ''people's veto'' had just 12,000 of the 51,131 signatures they needed to force a state referendum on gay rights.How did they collect 46,000 more by Thursday?
Paul Volle of the Christian Coalition of Maine says the solution evolved when organizers realized their corps of volunteer petition circulators needed closer supervision.
To provide it, the Christian Coalition and its campaign partner, the Christian Civic League of Maine, divided the state into seven regions. For each region, a field coordinator was hired and given a $1,000 stipend and a $1,500 budget.
Each coordinator was supplied with a database of potential signatories, and was expected to produce a daily quota of signatures. Each reported daily to the campaign's leaders. Volunteers went door-to-door, and also stood outside post offices, supermarkets and town dumps.
''A week ago Monday, we met and assessed where we were, and we were about 15,000 short of where we are now,'' Volle said. But time seemed to be running out; after all, signatures would have to be verified by town clerks before being submitted to the state.
Organizers nonetheless gave themselves more time for collecting signatures, continuing the effort until 5:30 p.m. Sunday.
Then, in a finely tuned, highly coordinated exercise, petitions from far-flung towns were brought to 20 collection points around the state. Couriers then brought the collected petitions to the Civic League's Augusta office. All night, volunteers sorted petitions by county and town.
By 5:30 a.m. Monday, couriers were taking the sorted petitions back to the field collection points. From there, volunteers delivered the petitions to each town hall by 5 p.m.
Two days later, on Wednesday, volunteers retrieved the verified petitions from the town halls. Couriers again took the petitions to Augusta, where campaign workers double-checked names and photocopied the thousands of petitions until 3 a.m. Thursday.
Seven hours later, they were in the State House's Hall of Flags, claiming 58,750 signatures, and success.
- Steven G. Vegh
to top These days, referendums to initiate laws are more popular.By Paul Carrier AUGUSTA - Assuming opponents of civil rights for homosexuals have collected enough valid signatures to force a ''people's veto,'' Maine voters are about to get a taste of a seldom-used political process.
Staff WriterThe last time voters were even asked to reject a law passed by the Legislature was in 1980. In that case, they upheld a law banning slot machines.
The last time voters actually vetoed a law was in 1974. They rejected a law increasing the legal weight of trucks.
Although Mainers have had access to the people's veto for more than 80 years, it has been used only 22 times since 1910.
In fact, the people's veto has become less popular in recent years than it was early in the century.
Voters are seeing more referendums to pass new laws at the ballot box, and fewer referendums to veto laws already passed by the Legislature. That's what a ''people's veto'' referendum does.
Only two people's vetoes have gone to the voters since 1974. That compares to 23 referendums proposing new laws during the same period.
The people's veto is used so rarely that Secretary of State Dan Gwadosky held a news conference Thursday to explain how it will work. Gwadosky made that explanation because organizers have submitted what appear to be enough signatures to force a veto vote on the gay-rights law the Legislature passed this year.
That gay-rights law would have taken effect today had no one challenged it. By seeking a people's veto, organizers have prevented the state from implementing the gay-rights law - at least for now.
Here's what happens next.
The secretary of state has until Oct. 18 to determine whether the petitions contain the signatures of at least 51,131 registered voters. That's the minimum required to force a referendum. Gwadosky said Thursday he doesn't think it will take that long to check all of the petitions.
If the petitions fall short, the gay-rights law will go into effect the day after the secretary of state announces his count.
If the petitions contain enough valid signatures, the law will remain in limbo until voters decide whether to implement it or veto it.
So when could the issue go to the voters?
No one knows yet. The referendum would have to be held after this November's election but before next June's primary. That means the state would have to schedule a special election, probably early next year.
If there is a referendum, what will it say?
Here's the question as it would appear on the ballot:
''Do you want to reject the law passed by the Legislature and signed by thegovernor that would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation with respect to jobs, housing, public accommodations and credit?''
A yes vote would kill the law. A no vote would uphold the law and allow it to take effect a month after the governor proclaims the results.
to top Carolyn Cosby, perhaps Maine's most well-known opponent of gay-rights laws, has left the state and does not expect to return for several years.''I don't know when and if I'm going to return to Maine,'' she said Thursday.
Cosby's husband is a Postal Service employee who is traveling throughout the nation. She joined him in May.
''He is traveling extensively and has been for the past year and a half, and I haven't been with him,'' she said.
But the two missed each other, and Cosby said she is enjoying spending time with her husband.
''This will go on for a couple of years,'' she said.
- Joshua L. Weinstein
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