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?

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.

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?

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.

Do you have not even a remark or defense of Ms. Pingree?

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.

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.

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?