A referendum in Maine
Kales, James
DISPUTED QUESTIONS HOMOSEXUALITY A REFERENDUM IN MAINE VOTING ON GAY RIGHTS James Kales One might say that the Catholic church has a large presence in Lewiston, Maine. Most of this small...
...The amendment was put aside, however, because the original ordinance was already on the November ballot...
...Celeste Branham of EPL, in turn, said that her group will have to focus on nonlegislative strategies to achieve its aims...
...Plourde, who is president of the coalition and himself suffers from AIDS, said he had returned to Lewiston only two years ago, after a twenty-threeyear absence, because of the illness...
...They call these scare tactics, but we saw them as the next step," Madore said...
...Throughout the public debate, the Catholic church, through the Diocese of Portland, maintained a position of "neutrality" on the ordinance...
...Then came the opposition, in the form of a group called ACT (All Catholics for Truth...
...Moreover, Madore believes that with or without these ads the ordinance would have been rejected...
...The moral distinctions the church insists on between homosexual orientation and "behaviors'' or sexual acts make it difficult to assess how the large Catholic presence in Lewiston affected the outcome of the referendum...
...Thus, without the amendment, the diocese maintained its neutrality and urged Lewiston's Catholic priests to stay out of the debate, which most did (though four priests went on record in support of the ordinance...
...Chief Gilbert—who is married, a father of three, and Catholic—seems at first glance an anomalous choice to lead a gay-rights movement...
...Her group plans to approach organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce and the local landlords' association, asking them to adopt nondiscrimination policies...
...Further, as a twenty-five-year veteran of Lewiston's police force, Gilbert was aware that more than a few gay bashings have occurred over the years in this seemingly sleepy town...
...I saw this as a cry for help," said Gilbert, "and I responded...
...Catholic bishops' 1976 statement that "homosexual persons, like everyone else, should not suffer from prejudice against their basic human rights...
...Henchal, in fact, eventually backed an amendment drawn up by several local Catholic lawyers to try to clarify this issue...
...He added, "I think that the response that any practicing Catholic would have toward a homosexual would be a charitable response...
...The town's voters, he said, didn't buy EPL's argument that the ordinance was limited to discrimination only, and that it wouldn't lend a stamp of approval to homosexuality...
...That vote came last November, and the ordinance lost by a two-to-one margin...
...But she doesn't think the church's teaching was the source of the ordinance's defeat...
...An EPL leaflet, for example, under the heading "Catholic Church Supports Equal Rights for Everyone" quoted the U.S...
...The gay-rights movement has suffered a significant defeat here in Lewiston," he said...
...DISPUTED QUESTIONS HOMOSEXUALITY A REFERENDUM IN MAINE VOTING ON GAY RIGHTS James Kales One might say that the Catholic church has a large presence in Lewiston, Maine...
...Still, according to local gays, fear remained in reporting violence because they could be discriminated against if their sexual orientation was made public...
...I think we lost to fear...
...Specifically, she referred to "scare tactics" used by the ordinance's opponents, such as ads declaring that if passed, the ordinance could lead to "affirmative action for gays" or the imprisonment of psychologists who speak against homosexualityBut Paul Madore, the chairman of COLFR (and the founder of its predecessor, ACT), said his group didn't view such ads as scare tactics...
...Supporting the ordinance was a group called Equal Protection Lewiston (EPL), led by Lewiston Police Chief Laurent F. Gilbert...
...Gilbert proposed the ordinance to the council in January '93, and after a heated public debate it was approved by a five-to-two margin...
...All told, over 75 percent of the town's residents belong to one of its six Catholic churches, which pop up on the unsuspecting visitor with almost minimarket frequency...
...The ordinance's opponents, on the other hand, could refer interested parishioners to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which concluded that homosexual actions are "intrinsically disordered" and "in no case to be approved of...
...Don Plourde, one of the few local gays to speak publicly in support of the ordinance, now speaks about leaving town...
...Irish-Americans make up much of the remainder of the population...
...He wrote that while "the church teaches that all persons are entitled to the exercise of their basic human rights," it was unclear whether the ordinance would "be able to distin7 A VOTE ON GAY RIGHTS » JAMES KALES_________________________________7 NO ROOM FOR DIALOGUE • JAMES L. NASH_____________________________8 SCRIPTURE & THE SPIRIT • LUKE TIMOTHY JOHNSON___________________11 CHOICE & SEXUALITY • DENNIS O'BRIEN_______________________________14 AN INCARNATIONAL ETHIC • PAULBAUMANN________________________17 guish between [homosexual] orientation, which is not immoral, and [homosexual] behaviors, which are...
...In the fall of 1992, Gilbert and the other members of the Hate/Bias Crimes Task Force drew up a ten-page ordinance "to prevent discrimination in employment, housing, access to public accommodations, or in the extension of credit on account of sexual orientation...
...After all that's happened here, I'm thinking of moving to Portland," he said upon closing up for the night the office of the Androscoggin Valley AIDS Coalition (AVAC), hidden in an unassuming, weathered row house just outside of downtown...
...Despite the neutrality of the diocese and most parish priests, both sides tried hard to show that "The Church" was really on their side...
...The Reverend Michael Henchal, chancellor of the diocese, said the ordinance was vague as to whether it applied to homosexual orientation only, or whether homosexual behavior also would be covered...
...He claimed that with ordinances like Lewiston's, an employer with a history of past discrimination against gays could be forced by the courts into a kind of affirmative-action rehiring scheme...
...James Kales, a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government, lives in Brighton, Massachusetts...
...The rent was cheap and I could afford it," he said...
...The task force helped improve relations between the town's gay community and the local police...
...In conclusion, Henchal encouraged local Catholics "to vote in accord with their [own] judgments...
...And the leaflet asserted that "while the Catholic church does not tell their faithful how to vote in secular elections, it is clear that the church supports the basic human rights which are the subject of Lewiston's antidiscrimination ordinance...
...The law, as it was written, had a great deal of bite in it," Madore said...
...We know they [EPL] wouldn't accept this, because what they wanted was approval of the lifestyle," he said...
...I think that the state legislators in Augusta who had thought that Maine was ripe for a gay-rights law will be compelled by the results in Lewiston to reconsider...
...Most of this small city' s 41,000 residents are Franco-Americans, products of a wave of French Catholic immigration from Quebec in the early part of this century, which filled the town's bustling textile mills and shoe factories...
...Henchal explained the diocese's position in an article published in Lewiston's daily paper shortly before the vote...
...And he said that in Canada, those who criticize homosexuality on mental health grounds can be brought to trial for violating that country's hate-crime law...
...The proposed amendment specified that "the intent of this ordinance is to protect persons against discrimination which is based solely on a status or tendency, not to protect or endorse behavior, whether or not related to such a status or tendency...
...However, the local gay and lesbian community remains very much closeted and without a strong voice...
...So it's not surprising that when a gay-rights battle erupted here last year, the positions and policies of the Catholic church would be front and center, whether the church liked it or not...
...The debate started last January, when the city council approved a nondiscrimination ordinance covering sexual orientation...
...Moreover, according to Bryan Dench, who helped draft the amendment's language, the ordinance's supporters were extremely uncomfortable with the changes...
...ACT, which soon changed its name to Citizens of Lewiston for the Repeal (COLFR) to broaden its base, succeeded in gathering the requisite signatures to bring the ordinance up for a public referendum...
...Madore insisted, however, that he and other Catholics in town have no ill will toward homosexuals...
...Meanwhile, life in Lewiston goes on...
...Celeste Branham, a board member of EPL and dean of students at Lewiston's Bates College, characterized the directions given by the Diocese of Portland as "paradoxical'' and confusing...
...That was one of the reasons his department formed a Hate/Bias Crimes Task Force in 1991...
...Charity aside, Madore and his group are clearly emboldened by the success of their repeal effort...
...I don't think we lost to the Catholic church," Branham said...
...He added that "the diocese does not judge that this is one of those issues, where the moral principles clearly point to one answer or the other...
...That is the element that ignited the kind of opposition that the gay rights movement incurred in Lewiston...
Vol. 121 • January 1994 • No. 2
