Jesse Connolly Outlines Maine Marriage Equality Strategy
posted 12th November 2009 in Legislation, Liberty, Politics, Sex and Gender, State and Local by Jim
Jesse Connolly, the straight, married Maine father who managed for the NO on 1 / Protect Maine Equality campaign, has signaled the strategic approach for Maine marriage equality moving forward. By e-mail today:
I hope you will support EqualityMaine, our state’s LGBT political organization. It was their years of work that positioned Maine to be the first state in the country to pass marriage equality in the Legislature and have it signed by the Governor — and they will lead us to do it again.
EqualityMaine has a big job in 2010 — to protect the legislators who passed the marriage bill and to elect new pro-marriage candidates to ensure that marriage equality becomes law once more in Maine.
If all goes well in elections for the State House and State Senate, Maine might be looking at the relegalization of same-sex marriage in 2011. If elections are swept by anti-gay forces, look for a longer haul.
Tags: equality, gay, jesse connolly, lesbian, lgbt, maine, marriage, same_sex, strategy
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What about opposition to ballot referendums? They’re an exceptionally corrupt system for passing laws, open to moneyed influence from outside the state.
The whole system’s corrupted J., waddiya talkin’ about?
No on 1 had the money advantage. After you take away the tax exemption of churches, should it be mandated in the next marriage equality referendum that the pro gay marriage side be given a 4-1 ration in funding?
NO on 1 had the money advantage, AFTER you take away the resources of churches, considerably utilized in the Maine campaign week after week.
In money No on 1 had an almost 2 to 1 advantage. There were thousands of volunteers brought into the state by the No on 1 campaign. The total sum of No on 1 resources was clearly much greater than those of Yes on 1. No on 1 even had enough money to pay Hannah Pingree to speak and not an ethical eyebrow was raised in Augusta.
Yes on 1 ran the smarter campaign. They kept fringe people likes Misters Heath and Madore out of the campaign. The publicizing of the report of the governor’s commission on LGBT issues in schools showed that the questions raised about bringing a one sided view of the topic into the classroom were valid.
Unlike Yes on 1, No on 1 failed to reign in their fringe element. Letters to the editor and statements by activists revealed an element of the No side that was rabidly anti-religious. Was that a partial cause of the big divergence in margins between Cumberland and Androscoggin counties? It was very interesting that No on 1 could prevail at 73% in Portland, but lose 35 miles away in Lewiston at 58.7%. Worse still were the Yes votes of 60-65% in smallish Lewiston-Auburn area towns of Lisbon and Turner.
Jim keep pulling the wool over your eyes and believing the fallacy that you were outspent. Or espouse the new “Equality” mantra that the People’s Veto is an anarchism that should be abolished. To me that would be better than you running a truly effective state wide campaign that disassociated itself from anti-religious bigots.
I didn’t say “money.” I said resources, which YES on 1 had b/c the Catholic Church used its immense resources from Maine and outside Maine.
There is no validity to the curriculum charge, as LD1020 and state law clearly show.
And the gall of pro-discrimination forces calling anti-discrimination forces “bigots” is astounding. Look up the word “bigot” in the dictionary.
I hope that the Demorats (correct spelling) in Augusta, give I B an 8-1 ration or ratio mandate in funding when I collect enough signatures for my heterosexual polygamy referendum.
Jim read my 2nd sentence. In it I used the word resources. You still haven’t pulled the wool from your eyes. The true gall in the campaign was that of Hannah Pingree. A leader of the legislature acting as a paid consultant to one side of a campaign in a public referendum. Bigots make fun of people’s beliefs and the institutions they belong to. Re-read some of the enlightened comments made by No on 1 supporters in various issues of any major Maine paper. There is little love there for the opposition. LD1020 said nothing about education. Actions of the governor and others point to a probable future of inclusion in the curriculum.
You used the word “spending” in the sentence regarding wool and my eyes.
You don’t know the definition of the word “bigot.” A bigot is not someone who “makes fun of people’s beliefs and institutions.” A bigot is someone who acts for the sake of their own group and who refuses to tolerate other groups.
Those who acted to pass LD1010 were not bigots. They were the epitome of tolerance, adding provisions to the bill to protect the rights of all religious groups to marry people or NOT marry people as they saw fit.
The repeal of same-sex marriage in Maine, on the other hand, was all about bigotry. People who cannot see beyond their own group’s preference. People who cannot bear to tolerate other people living differently than they do. People who act to squelch the rights of other people because they are the “other” that bothers overbearing, overreaching religious sensibilities. Bigotry. Bigots. Have the courage to admit it.
You must be just heartbroken over the practices of Marc Mutty, “Anonymous.” Right?
I have courage. I accept the differences of others. So do the majority of people in the state of Maine. They expressed that in a 2005 referendum where discrimination based upon sexual preference was outlawed and various legal rights were granted. Proponents of that legislation promised no future campaign for gay marriage, in 2005.
The nuanced talk about rights and bigotry lost. Marriage isn’t nor ever has been an absolute right. One can’t marry a 1st cousin in Maine, but oddly one can in New York. And of course ages of consent vary from state to state. The federal government passed 2 laws in the 19th century against the arch evil (me I say different) Mormons pretty much classifying their polygamous practices as seditious, also taking away their right to vote and hold political office.
Now Jim don’t play the racial marriage card. I’m a white male with a non white female fiancee. My friends have always varied in their origin and also their sexual preferences. My political and philosophical viewpoints aren’t static or uniform in party philosophy. However I do take an exception to the new evangelists, just like we both do to varying degrees with some fundamentalist Christian ministers. I tire of people at a gathering who preach there is no god, religion is evil, and you are a bigot for opposing gay marriage. Such zealots are as much annoying and imposing as any “born again” person who tries to over sell their viewpoint.
Is the case of such a person Mr. Wessler? Maybe not, he did do good work in easing racial tensions in the school system I once attended. There seems to be no new evangelist undercurrent of the religion/ Christian religion is evil in his speech. However Mr. Wessler showed his more controversial activist side at the Augusta Civic Center hearing. There Mr. Wessler held up the book at the center of the Lexington, MA school case, defended its content, and criticized opposition to it.
Guess what Jim and Mr. Wessler. Requiring me to explain the contents of that book to a 7 year old is both an imposition of a contentious political viewpoint upon me and the presentation of a fallacy to a 7 year old. Every child has a natural mother and a natural father. Children at 7, know the complexities of step parents and a few even understand the concept of a gay parent. But Jocelyn and Emily depicted in the book are not both natural mothers to Kyle and his sister.
Much like the promise of the, there will be no gay marriage campaign, of 2005 referendum proponents, the denial of a future of teaching about this issue in public schools is both a fallacy and a future incorrect imposition of a viewpoint in education.
P.S. Jim: Marc Mutty took a leave of absence from his day job. There have been no accusations against him concerning that. Hannah Pingree admitted an ethical lapse. But she didn’t return any of the money that was paid to her and as I said not an ethical P.C. eyebrow was raised in Augusta.
If you favor a policy of inequality and discrimination for people who are not of your group, you are a bigot. Definitionally. If you have a problem with being a bigot, then go ahead and re-evaluate your life. If you don’t have a problem with being a bigot, stop whining about being called one.
Guess what, B. LD 1020 DID NOT “require you to explain the contents of that book to a 7 year old.” Neither LD 1020 nor state law would have required anything to be taught regarding gay marriage in the public schools. LD 1020 would not have changed a single bit of the law regarding the teaching of gay marriage in the public schools. There are few things more annoying to me than someone claiming victimhood as they take away the legal rights of another person. Yes, legal RIGHTS. Under the U.S. Constitution Amendment #14. Under the Maine Constitution Article I Sections 1 and 61. Under LD 1020, until you took those rights away.
P.S. B, Marc Mutty’s salary throughout the campaign was paid by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland. Look it up. Mainecampaignfinance.com.
Bigot, bigot, bigot. Jim are you a bigot for failing to accept or include the the rights of gay and heterosexual 1st cousins to marry under LD1020? Gee, I can be as nuanced and obtuse as you.
Do you have not even a remark or defense of Ms. Pingree?
No, I don’t have a defense of Hannah Pingree. Why should I? I’m not a partisan, and this is not a game with points scored. The issue is the second-class citizenship you and your Yes-on-1 pals foisted upon gay and lesbian people in Maine. Whether Hannah Pingree was paid about $5,000 for fundraising-related work on mailing lists (as is her day job when she’s not working in Augusta) doesn’t affect the nature of the bill or whether LD1020 was right or wrong. If Hannah Pingree somehow broke the law or something, then sure, off to jail with her. Whatever. I don’t think she did, but if she did then sure, put her in shackles and make her read the Koran backwards in a tiara, ooga booga.
No, I’m not a cousin-bigot, because I couldn’t have failed to include a provision in LD1020, because I wasn’t given the choice to craft the LD1020 language, because I’m not a politician. If I were a state Senator or Representative and I voted for a bill that affirmatively rejected equality for first cousins, then yes, I would be a bigot in regards to that issue. And if I did, so extremely hypothetically now, vote for that nonexistent bill in my nonexistent job as a legislator, then I would have to explain why I voted the way I did, and if I had any integrity I would not run around pretending that I had not done so. Hypo-hypo-bizarro-hypo-hypothetically.
Hypo Hypo bizarro, I’m sorry if I fail to agree with you on the 14th amendment to the U.S. constitution.
How dare you make fun of my 1st cousin marriage discrimination topic. You are hypocritical and have an ideological tunnel vision view of groups, discrimination, and the term bigotry.
Please answer, how do you feel about the group rights to polygamous marriage of Muslims and renegade offshoot Mormons. Do you wholeheartedly support such group rights and oppose any speech against people who believe in them. Or are you a bizzaro bigot?
I’m not hypocritical. I’m pointing out that your example is hypothetical. What’s hypocritical about that?
Those renegade offshoot Mormon polygamist marriages have the pesky problem of being ridden, if we are to believe the papers, with non-consensual unions. Kiddy rape brings in a whole different dimension of human behavior, coercive violence. That’s not cool because it’s a violent act, and the violence should be prosecutable. It’s also inappropriate for kids to get married for the same reason it’s inappropriate for kids to take on full power of attorney for themselves: neurological studies show that kids’ brains aren’t fully myelinated yet, making then physically incapable of full rational consent. Gay and lesbian marriage, on the other hand, is a consensual activity carried out by consenting adults, making it, unlike 45 year olds taking on multiple 12 year olds, none of your beeswax.
To answer your question more broadly, if marriages are entered into by people of neurological maturity (i.e. not kids whose brains aren’t fully myelinated) who are consenting, then I don’t really care if they’re polyamorous or polygamous marriages or not.
If it doesn’t harm you or others, and everybody who’s doing it is fine with it and old enough to give their mature consent, what business is it of yours? Who appointed you town busybody? Does the town council get to have a majority vote on nullifying your marriage?
On another topic you seem eager to truck in to this thread, no, I don’t oppose people’s right to make any speech in support of or against anybody. Everybody’s got the right to free speech. That includes people who disagree with me, and that includes people who disagree with you.
Jim, polygamy and polyamory would be 2 new picture pages in the book Mr. Wessler held up at the Augusta hearing. Sorry if I am a non-believer in your assertion that such literature will not be in schools in the near future. Attorney General Mills stated that parents have a right to exempt their children from certain school activities, but have no right to object to the contents of a textbook. Just what is a polyamorous family, tell me how can I talk about that and how long will it take me to explain that picture page to a child or her 70 year old grandmother.
It’s great that you share my disgust at the criminal preying upon of young girls by some members of a group like the west Texas polygamous sect. I should hope that you also disapprove of the maybe minor criminal ruminations of a Mr. Jennings in the U.S. government. He has spoken and written for 20 years about failing to report an incident of illegal sexual contact with a 16 year old minor. That former student recently said he was 17 at that time. No, Mr. Jennings says 16 and has spoken favorably about MAMBLA. Oh, bigot bigot me, how is your ideological tunnel vision Jim, and have you ever said anything favorable about NAMBLA?
Now you’re just rambling.