Protect ME Equality Campaign Shot Ricochets, Hits Them In The Foot
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 17, 2009
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Contact: Scott K Fish, Communications Director
No on Question 1 Campaign Claims of “Fear-mongering, Lies and Distortions” Undercut By Their Own Legal Ally
Protect Maine Equality Can’t Shoot Straight – Campaign Shot Ricochets To Hit Themselves In The Foot
Portland, ME – In a misguided attempt to avoid discussion of legitimate issues raised by the proposed legalization of homosexual marriage, the No on Question 1 campaign has misfired, accusing legal scholars – including a prominent supporter of same-sex marriage – of engaging in “fear-mongering, lies and distortions.” The scholars are on record of pointing out the inherent legal conflicts between the rights of people who sincerely oppose homosexual marriage and the rights of same-sex ‘married’ couples if homosexual marriage is legalized.
“Unfortunately for Jesse Connolly and the No on 1 campaign, the shot they thought was aimed at us instead has ricocheted and is now squarely lodged in their own foot,” said Marc Mutty, Chairman of Stand For Marriage Maine, the official Yes on Question 1 campaign. “One of the legal scholars they dismiss as ‘liars’ includes Professor Douglas Laycock, a prominent scholar who supports homosexual marriage. In their desperation to avoid the legitimate discussion of serious issues raised by the legalization of homosexual marriage, the No on 1 campaign has wounded itself and done a great disservice to the people of Maine.”
Stand For Marriage Maine is running a television ad featuring Boston College Law School Professor Scott FitzGibbon discussing the consequences of legalizing homosexual marriage. Professor FitzGibbon references a letter sent to Governor Baldacci from four prominent legal scholars from:
* University of Notre Dame Law School;
* Washington and Lee University School of Law;
* University of Missouri; and
* The University of St. Thomas School of Law.
Responding to the commercial, No on 1 Campaign Manager sent an email saying, “Our opponents know that to defeat us, they need to flood the airwaves with fear-mongering, lies and distortion. They need to mislead the good people of Maine and change the subject by inventing so-called consequences of marriage equality.”
Unfortunately for Connelly, a prominent pro same-sex marriage legal scholar, Professor Douglas Laycock of the University of Michigan Law School, separately wrote Governor Baldacci endorsing the conclusions of the other scholars. “…[T]heir analysis of potential legal conflicts is accurate, and their proposed statutory language is necessary to legislation that is fair and just to all sides.” Professor Laycock went on to say, “I support same-sex marriage. I think the pending bill can be a great advance for human liberty. But careless or overly aggressive drafting could create a whole new set of problems for the religious liberty of those religious believers who cannot conscientiously participate in the new regime.”
Attached is Professor Laycock’s letter. The amendments that he and the other legal scholars suggested be incorporated in LD 1020 were not included in the legislation.
“The conflicts that LD 1020 creates for people of faith are real and serious concerns. Respected legal experts on both sides of the issue agree on this. It’s time for the No on 1 campaign to acknowledge these concerns and address them, rather than simply dismiss them with vitriolic campaign rhetoric. The legal scholars, including those who support same-sex marriage, are not part of our campaign. They have raised important issues that the people of Maine are entitled to know about. We intend to make sure that they do,” said Mutty.
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Download PDF of Prof. Laycock’s Letter to Gov. Baldacci
http://standformarriagemaine.com/docs/ProfessorLaycockLettertoGovBaldacc...
The link to Professor Laycock’s letter has been disrupted. I have tried on several other websites with the same result. Does anyone know what is happening?
No idea what's happening.
if that doesn't work copy the following into Google
maine Professor Douglas Laycock
find the entry in the results for the standformarriagemaine.com website . The last line of the entry will look like this
standformarriagemaine.com/.../ProfessorLaycockLettertoGovBaldacci.pdf - similar
don;t click the entry as you usually would. Instead click the "view" option which is at the end of the second line of the entry.
And don't thank me, thank Google's ever expanding tentacles into everything. There's a reason I like Google...it's hard to unstick things without preplanning.
Thank you, David. This has happened before with other items of interest no longer available in their original locations. Seems peculiar. Like this...
An NBC10 report from Philadelphia in 2004 titled "Students fear 'lesbian gang' at school" noted DTO members were harassing other students. Young female students were interviewed for the report and told of being bullied to becoming lesbians, of being groped and harassed in gym and girls bathrooms. (see the NBC10 report: http://www.nbc10.com/news/2857417/detail.html )
Okay...... We are all against bullies, right?
I like the Stand for Marriage TV advertisements. Keep 'em going!
Maine marriage campaign probe OKd
October 01, 2009 12:19 PM
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — The state ethics commission has overruled a staff recommendation and authorized an investigation into fundraising by groups that oppose Maine's gay marriage law.
...snip
Californians Against Hate founder Fred Karger complained that NOM* is circumventing Maine law by not reporting the names of many donors....
But NOM said it asks for donations nationally without designating them for specific campaigns, so it does not need to report contributors' names.
*(National Organization for Marriage)
I don't know the specifics on this one, but it seems to me that if donations are collected nationally, that might make a difference on reporting rules and compliance. This may be much fuss about not very much. Any legal beagles got the answer?
This is yet another example of the liberals taking advantage of the system with nuisance ethics complaints right before an election. They did this against our legislative candidates last fall, and now they're doing it with the referenda campaign. There's nothing Maine Democrats know how to do better than manipulate the system.
This is an out of state organization...I wish they would stay out of it.
This is an out of state organization...I wish they would stay out of it.
Agreed. If out-of-state organizations had stayed out of it from the beginning, you would never have had your revisionist law in the first place.
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=286866&ac=PHnws
Real Mainers step up for 'No on 1' ads
Go to the Web site of Stand for Marriage Maine (www.standformarriagemaine.com) and right at the top you'll see a young heterosexual family – smiling Mom and Dad with two carefree kids piggybacked on their shoulders – presumably hand-picked from... multitudes of Mainers...
Now go to www.monkeybusinessimages.com, an online store for "stock photography." Now type "couple giving two young children piggyback rides smiling" into the search box.
Voila! There they are again! The same happy family from who knows where?
Great job again Bill!
charlotte, do you and Bill also assume that every stock photo of a person displayed in a newly purchased picture frame bought in a store in Maine is of a resident of Maine?
?
Nemitz takes his big bat, and wiffs at another one.
Again we see Bill Nemitz slithering into the world of personal smears against traditional marriage supporters.
These people he describes were known traditional marriage supporters, and so their experience and insight was used in the ads. They were not held out as Mainers, and whether or not they were Mainers is not relevant.
Bill, you want “real Mainers”? How about 100,000 “real Mainers” who signed the petition to put the measure on the ballot?
So much for his “astroturf” claim.
Each of those signatories was brave. They have seen in California and elsewhere that traditional marriage supporters have been called and threatened, had their businesses picketed, church services disrupted and been assaulted. Nemitz, leading the pitchfolk brigade, wonders why people are reluctant to expose themselves to the dirty tactics of the gay rights activists.
Like Perez Hilton, Nemitz can't resist making a personal smear against a good and brave teacher who supports traditional marriage. Nemitz has shown in his previous columns that he enjoys and takes pleasure from personal attacks and harassment against marriage supporters, so his slimy tactic fits in well here.
Of course he neglects to point out that the gay marriage teacher supporters show in the No On One ads is a gay activist, and those connections were never disclosed by the gay marriage crowd.
It didn't take Bill Nemitz long to slide back into the land of sleaze and smears, he seems to be comfortable there.
But, if you took sleaze, lies, smears and personal attacks away from the gay activists, they wouldn't have any strategy left.
I am with you Domino...???? Don't get the comment at all LMD. Again, Bill hits it out of the park.
Charlotte and Domino would have more credibility if it were truly about equality for all but it isn't, because if it was just about equality then any number or combination of people who "loved"each other would be allowed to marry.
2 consenting adults. There are people born with both sexes out there... Are they not allowed to get married? There are people out there that are born with 2 sets of DNA, and the holier-than-thous claim that it can't possibly be genetic. Now, to muddy the water, the people against gay marriage think that polygamy is next? Seriously? Gay marriage is having a tough enough time getting voted in and even GAY people aren't for polygamy. Is there some huge Mormon sect that I don't know about in Maine??? : D
Well why not 3 consenting adults? And why would anyone be against it? Especially the folks who think same sex marriage is acceptable, who would they be to judge anyone wishing to be married after all it is about equality isn't it? May not happen in a year or two but IMO once the definition of marriage has been changed to justify one way of life then why not another in the future?
When heterosexual legal marriage leads to heterosexual legal polygamy...then we can talk about gay legal polygamy. Let's stick to the topic.
Let's stick to the topic.
We are sticking to tyhe topic.
The topic is that there is a "right" to marriage.
If gay couples have a "right" to marriage - then why don't polymagists?
Polygamy is INEVITABLE as a result of gay marriage.
Gay activists would rather have you forget about that.
Yeah, most guys I know would really like to have two or three more wives...NOT! Whoever wishes for that deserves what they get. Somehow I think the sentiment applies to multiple husbands, as well. This is the stinkiest red herring I've ever encountered. You might as well say that same sex marriage will lead to more bank robberies. The logic is just as sound. Perhaps more so.
From The1972 Gay Rights Platform created at the National Coalition of Gay Organizations held in Chicago in 1972:
STATE LEVEL:
8. Repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit; and the extension of legal benefits to all persons who cohabit regardless of sex or numbers.
Yes and most guys want to marry another guy...NOT! And why not marriage for all, lets really be number one, think of the increased business from all the marriages, not just same sex. I am not saying this will lead to it, but why not and why won't the same people who are for same sex marriage against this concept except maybe this is not about equality at all (speaking of red herring) but the tearing down of an institution in the name of equality or rights or what ever the word of the day is?
That should be the next "No on One" commercial!!! The camera pans to a woman at her home office and she starts reading the stuff written here (or another forum like this) and exclaims "Now they are trying to say that gay marriage will lead to polygamy? Now THAT is scraping the bottom of the barrel...."
Well, LMD, I guess you just handed Average Joe's head to him.
More folks might be in favor of polygamy. The point you are missing is once the law has been changed to accommodate what some people feel is normal behaviour then who gets to decide the next behaviour that must be accepted? Did anyone here think that marriage would be anything but between a man and a women, say 5yrs ago (the gays said all they wanted was equality), how about 10 yrs ago? So to sit there and say it won't happen is a joke. I would vote NO on one if we allowed everyone and anyone to get married after all once the definition is changed it loses all significance. And feel free to post my questions in there entirety on your ads, it might wake a few people up as to what is possible in the future.
This is the tactic..."don't look at the real issue...If we let gays marry...then we have to let folks marry multiple spouses."
Well why not? Do you have a reason others should not have the rights you are fighting for, claiming it to be about equality and fairness. About people who love each other etc.
Right, LMD really put me in my place. Look, if I cited some loonytoons website that decreed an agenda that included a provision that registered homosexuals must be excluded from prosecution for robbing banks, what would that prove other than I had found a loonytoon website?
I don't care whose agenda polygamy is on, it ain't going to happen. Very few people want it, it's not a cause people can rally around even if they don't want it, and it's a total distraction, red herring, straw man to the real issues of Question One. Get off it.
naive. Once marriage is established as a "right" one will not need to have the majority of people "rally" around the issue of polygamy...one person can challenge the constitutionality of being denied the "right" and win. It is already happening in Canada.
Where are we to look for what can happen if this legislation is not repealed if we do not look to places where same sex marriage is legal? This out of state boogey man theory is ridiculous. My democrat sentator is from out of state......is that reason for people to not vote for her again????
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“One of the legal scholars they dismiss as ‘liars’ includes Professor Douglas Laycock, a prominent scholar who supports homosexual marriage.
lol.
"I am Joe Wilson!"