Grass-roots movement delineates gay rights debate

HOULTON – Just before WHOU-FM airs its Sunday morning broadcast of a local church service, Stan Ginish gets his say.

“Maine is a beautiful place, but there are those … who would like us to be known as the hateful state,” Ginish begins his 60-second radio spot, urging listeners to reject a “people’s veto” referendum aimed at repealing the governor’s newly signed gay rights law.

The early – and thus far strictly local – advertising campaign took many by surprise and, some say, exemplifies the significant grass-roots movement on both sides of the debate over whether to extend Maine’s anti-discrimination laws to homosexuals.

Ginish, a 53-year-old retired Navy veteran, is not the only “one man show” in the current political fight over gay rights, previous renditions of which have spawned some of the state’s most contentious campaigns.

About 150 miles due south in Beals, Dan Riley found himself a bit nervous before addressing his fellow congregants at the Beals Advent Christian Church on a recent Sunday.

Riley, a lobsterman who has lived on the Washington County island for about three years, used the forum to explain his opposition to the gay rights initiative – a precursor, he argued, to same-sex marriage.

“I expect I’ll become a lightning rod for this,” Riley, 42, said this week of his volunteer effort to strike down the law, which cut a quick path through the Legislature on its way to Gov. John Baldacci’s desk. “Now I just have to get a thick skin.”

If the law takes effect in late June as scheduled, it would amend the Maine Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in the areas of housing, employment, education, lending and lodging.

To prevent the law’s enactment and force a November referendum, opponents, headed by the Christian Civic League of Maine, must submit 50,519 signatures to state election officials by June 28.

Few predict opponents will have difficulty collecting the signatures in the 77 remaining days, with petitions already circulating in or around small churches such as those in Riley’s fishing village of Beals, where voters have soundly defeated past gay rights initiatives.

“Conservative,” Riley said Monday, tapping a Bush-Cheney sticker on the back of his minivan when describing his own political leanings and those of the town in general.

Back in Houlton, Ginish is less likely to find a receptive local audience, said Rev. Randall Burns of the Military Street Baptist Church. In the Aroostook County town – the southern tip of the state’s “Bible Belt” – 62 percent of voters rejected a gay rights initiative in 2000.

“He’s one voice crying in the wilderness up here,” said Burns, whose church this week will host a stop on the Christian Civic League’s “swing tour” of northern Maine to train petition gatherers.

Although the WHOU airwaves don’t reach far outside the “Bible Belt,” which runs along Route 1 from Caribou to Houlton, Ginish said he believed his ad was having an early impact.

“I’ve had some people come up and say, ‘You’ve got more cajones than me,'” said Ginish in his distinctive Rhode Island accent. He said he also plans to post the names of those who sign the petition on a Web site.

“Do you want your grandchildren to know this?” Ginish asks in one of his ads. “Don’t sign the hate referendum.”

For his part, Riley said his stand on the equal rights issue has nothing to do with hating gay people, but his fear the lifestyle will gain mainstream acceptance through government recognition.

“We can hate the sin but love the sinner,” Riley said.

Shortly after launching his own petition drive, Riley asked Civic League executive director Michael Heath for guidance and has since agreed to be a coordinator for the league’s referendum effort in Washington County.

Ginish is not affiliated with the Portland-based political action committee Maine Won’t Discriminate, which is heading the effort to keep the gay rights law on the books. Patricia Peard, the group’s spokeswoman, said she was not aware of Ginish’s local campaign.

Maine voters have been unpredictable on the gay rights issue during the past decade, twice – in 1998 and 2000 – rejecting initiatives similar to the governor’s. In 1995, however, voters overwhelmingly approved a gay rights initiative.

Those campaigns, more so than many statewide referendum drives, have relied heavily on grass-roots efforts such as those under way in Aroostook and Washington counties, according to University of Maine political scientist Amy Fried.

“A lot of work is going to be done at the local level and it’s going to be a quiet campaign in some respects,” said Fried, predicting gay rights opponents, already organized within many conservative churches, would have less need for an intense and expensive advertising campaign.

Ginish’s modest advertising is costing him a bit of his own money. The twice-daily airing costs $135 a week, far less than the $1,500 expenditure needed to trigger the state’s campaign finance reporting laws.

At least for the next few weeks, Ginish plans to keep running the ads, but said he won’t be toning down their admittedly provocative rhetoric.

“You can be a nice guy in politics, but a nice guy in politics loses,” he said.