The anti-gay nasties in Maine will have to orchestrate another miracle to keep their not-here! train on track. The wire services and Boston papers picked up on the fund-raising for the gay-rights law rollback. The best coverage was in the Portland Press-Herald.
The short of it is that to date the key players in the effort to strip sexual orientation from the state's equal-rights law have spent their hate war chest. The anti folk are largely the Christian Civic League of Main and its spinoff Maine Grassroots Coalition. Through July 5, they raised $117,826 and only have $3,800 left. Much of its money went to collecting signatures to put the rollback on the November ballot.
Meanwhile, Maine Won't Discriminate and Equality Maine only collected $83,071, but have $32,000 to use.
Of course, both sides will get more cash. Some of the anti forces include industrialists who have already written big checks to beat homosexuals back down below legal protection. One who will surely pony up more is Douglas Sukeforth, who used to own and be president of Mid-State Machine Products. He seems convinced that Massachusetts-style gay marriage will follow if Maine offers homosexuals protection against discrimination. "The gay-rights part is just a cover-up," he really did say.
Both sides are busy raising money for the campaign. Meanwhile, there are those of us who hope that the petition people overplayed their cards as similar types did a few years ago in Massachusetts. If they don't have enough real voters on the petitions, Maine won't even have to face the issue in the fall.
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