Deadline looms for people’s veto signatures

AUGUSTA – After a weekend push to collect signatures for a people’s veto effort, opponents of Maine’s newly enacted gay rights law said Monday they’re not sure whether they’ve collected enough to force a statewide vote this November.

Campaign leaders including the Christian Civic League of Maine and the Maine Grassroots Coalition have until today to submit the signatures of at least 50,519 voters to the secretary of state’s office.

On Saturday, civic league leaders estimated they were a few thousand signatures short and appealed to members to collect what was needed. But Monday morning, the league said the outcome of its last-minute effort was too close to call.

“As of yet, we haven’t been able to determine the result, but we remain cautiously optimistic,” the league said in its online newspaper, The Record.

The petitions seek to force a vote on the law that prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, education, credit and public accommodations based on sexual orientation. The law is similar to previous gay-rights legislation that voters rejected in 1998 and again in 2000.

Activists seeking to overturn the anti-discrimination law see it as a step toward gay marriages and view their own campaign as an effort to defend traditional marriage and the family.

Maine has a statute defining marriage as between a man and a woman, but lawmakers refused this spring to send a proposed constitutional amendment to that effect to voters for ratification. Maine has a registry for domestic partnerships, but they do not create marriages between couples.

Supporters of Maine’s gay rights law stress that Maine is the last New England state to enact protections for gays. They have labeled suggestions that the law sanctions gay marriages as a scare tactic.

The supporters planned a news conference Tuesday afternoon in the State House to mark Tuesday’s petition deadline. The gay rights law, which was signed by Gov. John Baldacci on March 31, is scheduled to take effect this week.

“Maine’s anti-discrimination law will take effect or we will launch a campaign to affirm that Mainers support basic legal protections for all,” the group Maine Won’t Discriminate said.