Maine Beast Becoming Porch Dog?

Has over a century of bluenoses and blue laws quietly ended? I try not to get too amused by this, but very recent changes at the Maine Christian Civic League websites suggest the old dog can't hunt and will spend time on the porch, the Focus on the Family porch.

It's been since my birthday in June that I heard about the CCL. Its I'm-not-a-minister-but-I-play-one-on-the-Internet head Mike Heath (see godly image adapted from their old site) announced in the middle of the month that they failed in their petition drive to repeal gay-rights wording in various regulations and laws.

Now just recently, if you head to their old site, cclmaine.org, you see the devolved one. It routes to Maine Family Policy Council. The CCL and CEL (Christian Education League) are subsumed under the new name, with stress underneath and a link to Focus on the family. This is a kind of Cub Scout pack of state dens of such minor organizations, you can see on the list here. These are another undisguised Focus on the Family front.

Moreover, the rerouted CCL homepage is just an ad for a fund-raising dinner, with no links to the newsletter, Heath's rants or any of the old stuff.

I read this as the CCL is effectively dead. Following defeats at the ballot and in lobbying, they likely can't raise enough cash to stay in biz solo. Maine's liking equality. I'm betting they have set aside their old group of nasties and the name they started with their 1905 incorporation just to stay alive in this diminished form.

Heath himself is morphing as well. With a bit of searching and occasional use of cached pages, you can see the very recent pages for the CCL, its Record newsletter, Heath's blog entries, and their old foolishness. Look for:

• The old Heath entries here. His posts there run into the third week of July.
• The mikeheath.net now re-routes too, to mikeheath.blogspot.com. Even here, he no longer uses a cclmaine.org mailing, rather a Gmail account. He does not describe himself as the exec of the CCL, rather a parachurch leadership guy (he's the only Blogger account holder in that category). Note too that this is a free blog; he didn't shell out $100 a year for his own domain and site.
• Heath's new blog has no link to anything CCL, not even his years of blog entires. It starts its archive from this month (two entries) and doesn't include his hits like the March promise to repeal gay-rights in Maine.
• From any of the old CCL old pages, click on the Citizen Action Center to find nothing to protest. The legislature is not in session, but there always used to be something to be irate about and drive your calls.
• Try the Christian Education League link to route to that fund-raiser new no-longer-the-CCL page.
• The Archive link is inoperative from any page.

In theory, they could just be having monumental website problems. Instead, it looks like they have no money and are effectively out of business. Heath must be trying to set up another such deal with someone, anyone.

It is astonishing that such a publicity hound never touted or even explained these big changes. Perhaps he's waiting for a sign.

Meanwhile, this looks a lot like Kris Mineau and the Massachusetts Family Institute. Both organizations failed at all their big anti-GLBT efforts. Their states don't want to play those games anymore. I bet Focus on the Family won't be spending any real money in either state and will put it down where they have a chance to do their evil.

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Tags: massmarrier, Maine, Mike Heath, gay rights, CCL, Focus on the Family