“Faggets should be denied much more than just mortgage applications, car loans and decent educations, which are all things that people who should be DEAD don’t need.” (Personal correspondence; spelling and emphasis retained.)

It was one letter out of 30, written soon after I had addressed last spring’s human rights law repeal effort in these pages. Answering those who had conjured up the phantom threat of gay marriage, I had argued that the real issue was discrimination, that the law in question cannot be used to legalize gay marriage, and that I find nothing in the Bible that justifies excluding gay residents from obtaining mortgages, auto loans or a shot at a decent education.

Most of the letters I received were gentle rebukes sent in the spirit of love and common Christian conversation. They were from folks who see this issue differently, and who made their points after great thoughtfulness and prayer. They wrote out of fear of the unknown, and they wrote out of the conviction that repealing civil rights for gay people will somehow make our state a more holy place, more pleasing to God.

Then came the letter from which I quoted above, four pages of yellow paper with neatly printed script, chilling in its innocent appearance. Like the other letters, it quoted the same obscure scriptures, rehearsed the same well-worn arguments. Obviously the author had sat at the feet of one fundamentalist preacher or another; he was a child of the Church. Unlike the previous letters, however, the conclusions drawn were frightening. God doesn’t want gay and lesbian people to have civil rights, the writer argued. God wants them dead.

The letter was a bucket of cold water in the face. It was a reminder that while liberals and conservatives have polite conversations about human rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, we live in a state with a blessedly small but dangerous minority who would think nothing of refusing a gay couple a room, firing them, threatening them with bodily harm, or throwing them to their death from a bridge.

We – liberals and conservatives alike – live with the illusion that the Maine human rights law has only symbolic value, that it merely ratifies the equality that we think already exists here in Maine. I would argue that such blindness is born of privilege, of the assurance that no one will question why I am checking into a hotel with my wife, that no one will fire me if I kiss her goodbye in the parking lot, that if I’m told, “There is no apartment available,” then I don’t have to wonder whether or not it’s true.

As a white, heterosexual, Christian man, I can debate with my peers whether and under what conditions to extend protection to fellow citizens without ever having to experience why such protection is needed. I might indeed be tempted to label accounts of such discrimination as “bogus,” as Michael Heath did the other night on television, but in my heart, I know that it’s not true. Violent and vile discrimination does happen in Maine, and the followers of Jesus Christ should be the first ones to raise our voices in protest when it does.

The views of the person who wrote me the letter filled with hate are not my first concern. My first concern is that the rest of us who know his hatred for what it is will do nothing, will find reasons to be too busy on Tuesday to do what we know in our hearts is the right thing to do.

The sole effect of Question 1 on Maine law is to make discrimination in our state legal once again. A “yes” vote means that the person who wrote me the letter will possess not only the freedom to hold such hateful opinions but the legal right to persecute his fellow Mainers on the basis of such bigotry. I honestly can’t imagine any one of us voting “yes” to empower such hateful folks to inflict once again their poisonous behavior on the rest of us.

After many years, we have finally reached a time in which our gay children, siblings, church members and fellow residents can breathe a little easier as they go about living their everyday, productive lives, knowing that in the eyes of the law they finally have the same protections as everyone else. I would urge you to vote “no” on Nov. 8. I would urge you not to let a vocal minority take away basic freedoms that have been too long denied.

The Rev. Thomas L. Blackstone, Ph.D., is a United Methodist pastor in Presque Isle and a brother in the Order of St. Luke. He may be reached by e-mail at tlbphd@yahoo.com. Voices is a weekly commentary by Maine people who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.