When the “No Discrimination” signs went up in Lewiston, I wonder how clearly that message rang in the hearts of Mainers. Apparently not clearly enough. Through the ages of this country gays, lesbians and bisexual people have been trying to conceal a very wholly natural instinct: to love their same sex. But because of a misinformed society, these people have long been shamed and denied the most basic instinct of life, and so what became for many second instinct was a generally internalized rage and fear of life and living free.

Obviously the resolutions of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association and even the American Medical Association have not prevailed in the overall education of the public, and it would take some very influential support to drive that all-important message home: that discrimination is wrong in any form.

When the petition came to Presque Isle on Nov. 2 that asks citizens to discriminate on the basis that the gay community is asking for “special rights,” I began to realize that the national focus groups that have historically tried to stop so many civil rights movements in the past had hit their mark again. This, however, did not catch me off balance. I did see it coming but wished it would have somehow missed my state at least. Lynn Craig Presque Isle