Maine Family Policy Council

It was just a few weeks ago that we were noting that Mike Heath, formerly of the Maine Family Policy Council, had suddenly reappeared on the scene as the head of the American Family Association's affiliate in Maine.

During the fight over marriage in Maine, Heath had repeatedly embarrassed the right-wing effort by claiming that gay marriage leads to things like graffiti, vandalism, and crop failure and eventually found himself cast aside by the movement entirely.  As a result, he resigned his position as the head of the Maine Family Policy Council, announcing that it was time for him to do something else with his life and declaring that he was going to get involved in the manufacture and distribution of solar cookers in Africa.

Then he disappeared for several month, only to reemerge in March, leading the state's AFA affiliate.

And now, via Pam's House Blend, we see that Heath has even bigger plans: 

Michael Heath, former executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, has registered with the state ethics commission as a gubernatorial candidate.

Heath, a resident of China, is listed as an unenrolled candidate, which means he has until June 1 to get at least 4,000 signatures to qualify for the November ballot.

Heath recently announced the formation of a group called the American Family Association of Maine. At the time, he said he was "re-entering public life to continue the fight against the gay-rights lobby."

Heath spent 15 years working for the Christian Civic League, and became its executive director in 1994. He twice led people's veto efforts to overturn gay-rights laws.

Heath was not a visible part of last year's fight over same-sex marriage, which ended with voters repealing a state law legalizing it. He announced his resignation in September from the civic league, which is now called the Maine Family Policy Council.

There are now 24 people running for governor. Of those, 12 are Democrats or Republicans who will compete in the June 8 primary for the right to represent their parties on the November ballot. For the other 12, June 1 is the deadline to determine who among them will qualify to compete in November.

Back in September, Mike Heath of the Maine Family Policy Council suddenly announced that he was leaving the organization, right in the middle of the fight over marriage equality in the state.

Heath had been finding himself being pushed aside in the Religious Right's activism and mobilization efforts, presumably because of the rabidly anti-gay insanity he'd been spreading, as the Yes on 1 side worked to portray itself as tolerant and mainstream.

Heath then all but disappeared from the scene ... but now that Yes on 1 has been victorious in Maine, Tip-Q points out that he has popped up on Peter LaBarbera's Americans for Truth website declaring that gays are sick and calling for reinstatement of Maine's anti-sodomy laws:

Homosexuality has absolutely nothing to do with marriage. Homosexuality is a sickness. It’s a sin.

We need to stop putting up with it. There is nothing civil about hiding the truth from those we love. And the truth about sex outside of marriage is that it hurts, it’s bad for us. We need to avoid it.

We need to choose life over sex. Sex is for life … it creates life. Sex and life must be connected in our thinking. We come together sexually in the context of marriage to celebrate creation, the creation of a unique individual human life. It is perilous to disconnect sex from creation. It is even more perilous to pretend that pleasurable sex should be associated with acts unspeakable.

In the interest of protecting and affirming all of Maine’s people, especially our children and grandchildren, we must repeal domestic partnership laws that provide benefits on the basis of homosexuality, we must de-fund the so-called “civil rights teams” [pro-homosexual student groups] and remove “sexual orientation and gender identity” from the Maine Human Rights Act and the Maine Civil Rights Act. It would also be prudent to reinstate Maine’s anti-sodomy law that was quietly removed from our criminal code in the late 1970s.

A few weeks back, Jeremy noticed that Mike Heath of the Maine Family Policy Council had been unceremoniously dumped from the Religious Right's "Yes on 1" mobilization efforts in the state, presumably because of the rabidly anti-gay insanity he'd been spreading recently.

Now, via Pam, it looks like Heath took the slight personally and saw the writing on the wall and so has now announced that he is leaving the organization:

Mike Heath, the longtime leader of the Christian Civic League of Maine, announced today that he is moving on. Expressing appreciation for the League, Heath said that it has been a great honor to serve.

The Christian Civic League of Maine was formed in 1897.

Heath came to the League in 1989 on October 16th as the Administrative Assistant. On January 1, 1994 he was appointed Executive Director.

His first test came on the issue of casino gambling. When the dust settled he was credited by his adversaries with having stopped a casino from being built in Calais. Heath went on from there to tackle the most difficult and contentious social issue of our time, gay rights. In 1998 he was on the leadership team of the first successful People's Veto of gay rights. In 2001 he joined once again with Paul Madore and Paul Volle to lead a successful statewide campaign against homosexuality. Since the early 1990s Heath and the League have expressed serious concerns with the prospect of so-called same sex marriage. Everyone laughed back then. Maine will vote on the issue this November.

No stranger to controversy, Heath is often described as a "lightning rod."

The board accepted Heath's resignation yesterday during a meeting at the League headquarters building in Augusta. They expressed unanimous and strong support for the forty-eight year old leader. Heath pledged his full support to the League.

The other day Daimeon over at Pam's House Blend caught the Maine Family Policy Council posting this image on its website along with this description:

Who would know the meaning of the symbols shown below, for example? The bumperstickers on this car in Augusta are a silent 'dog-whistle' which tells other homosexuals that the owner supports the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest homosexual rights organization (the yellow and blue equal sign) and has had some contact with a sadomasochist organization in Georgia (a map of the state of Georgia drawn with the colors used by the sadomasochist movement, black and blue.)

The only problem was that the decal of the state of Georgia with a blue line across it is actually "displayed in honor of those injured or killed in the line of duty" in law enforcement.

Today, Jeremy at Good As You noted that MFPC has owned up to the mistake, but did so by blaming gays and society and pretty much everyone but themselves:

Yesterday The RECORD ran a photo of an auto in Augusta which sported two decals, one for the Human Rights Campaign, and one for what we incorrectly stated was the decal of a sadomasochistic organization. It was instead a "Thin Blue Line" decal which honors police.

Given the similarity of the "Thin Blue Line" design to the flag of the sadomasochistic movement, the mistake was understandable ... This is an error that anyone could have made, and is understandable in a society which is no longer shamed by perversion, but actually boasts of perversion and publically endorses it as "pride." The fault lies ultimately with those who seek to normalize deviancy.

We regret, however, if we have unwittingly and unintentionally associated anyone with this despicable movement.

This sort of insanity and vitriol is not an anomaly. In fact, just a few weeks ago the MFPC claimed that "call for same sex marriage and other forms of sexual immorality" are directly linked to urban blight and even said that crops were failing in the state due to gay marriage.

Amazingly, the organization is not just some crackpot fringe group, but is rather a "fully associated" affiliate of Focus on the Family whose leaders routinely participate in events with representatives from groups like the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America.

• Think Progress: Former President Jimmy Carter, who in 2000 officially severed ties with the Southern Baptist Convention after the SBC declared its opposition to female pastors and reiterated its calls “for wives to be submissive to their husbands,” condemned the mistreatment of women by religious leaders, writing that “the words of God do not justify cruelty to women.”
• RH Reality Check's Lindsay Beyerstein asks if George Tiller's assassin should be charged as a domestic terrorist.
• Good As You takes a look at the latest from the Maine Family Policy Council and reminds us: "This group is not some separate entity from the larger marriage fight. They are connected with Focus on the Family/Family Research Council. In fact, it was just this past February that FRC head Tony Perkins spoke at the groups' banquet. So it's not like this is a fringe story that's detached form Maine's "people's veto." THIS is the fight. THESE are the people. THIS is how they think of us: As innately immoral beings who are linked by unsavoriness."
• Joe My God points to The Lost Ogle catching the Baptist Messenger photoshopping Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry’s signature on to Rep. Sally Kern's “Proclamation for Morality" and placing the text of proclamation onto Executive Department letterhead while forging the signature of Secretary of State M. Susan Savage next to the state seal of Oklahoma in order to make it appear legitimate.
• Finally, Steve Benen asks just what House Minority Whip Eric Cantor's proposed "Judeo-Christian" foreign policy would look like.

Even since May, when Gov. John Baldacci of Maine signed a marriage equality bill, Religious Right opponents have been vowing to seek a referendum to overturn the law via a "people’s veto." And last week, they announced that they had gathered more than 55,087 signatures necessary to put the issue to a vote.

Among the myriad of Religious Right groups active in the effort has been Focus on the Family, which has been donating thousands of dollars to the cause.  And, via Box Turtle Bulletin, we come to find out that repealing this law in order to "protect marriage" is among FOF's top priorities:

Sonja Swiatkiewicz, Focus’ director of issues response, declined to say how much money was being sunk into the campaign effort as a matter of strategy.

...

She said working to strengthen and protect marriages is one of Focus’ priorities.

“Protecting the institution of marriage as between a man and a woman is one of our primary goals. We receive about 250,000 communications a month from folks who have very deep hurts, many of which are related to the breakdown of marriage and how that impacts mean, women and children.

“We work to protect or restore marriages as closely as we do on the sanctity of life beginning at conception and protecting religious liberties.”

Which brings us to The Maine Family Policy Council, which is a "fully associated" member of Focus on the Family's network of Family Policy Councils and this article that Good As You discovered on the Maine Family Policy Council's website in which it claims that the "call for same sex marriage and other forms of sexual immorality" are directly linked to urban blight (complete with photos, which I haven't included):

Homosexuality and other forms of aberrant behavior are on proud display in Portland, home of Maine's "Gay Pride" parade, with its seven hundred foot long Rainbow Flag. The Rainbow Flag is everywhere in Portland. Certain bars cater exclusively to homosexuals, including the club called Styxx, shown at below right.

Trash collectors are apparently overwhelmed in Portland. City streets were pristine in 2002, much cleaner than say, Manhattan or Chicago. Now litter and household trash is seen in every part of town, and when the wind blows, the garbage is simply blown down the streets. The photo at below left shows a common sight along lower Congress Street. Garbage is strewn throughout formerly beautiful Deering Oaks Park.

Evidence of crime is often seen, as in the photo below, where a smash and run burglar has smashed out the windows of a parked Audi. The sad thing about this photo is that the theft happened in broad daylight, across from the Eastland Park Hotel, and nothing was done about it. The car sat in that condition for hours, an open invitation for other criminals to do the same.

These photos taken on an average day in Portland are meant to illustrate the fact that the call for same sex marriage and other forms of sexual immorality is not happening in isolation. It is part and parcel of a society which calls itself progressive. But is it really progressive? Is it even Maine? These days, Portland looks like somebody put the city in reverse, and stepped on the gas.

Even though the legislation legalizing gay marriage didn't pass until two months ago, the MFPC makes repeated reference to how Portland has declined "since 2002."

Apparently, residents of Portland just knew back in 2002 that, seven years down the road, gay marriage might be legal in the state and so they just gave up and decided to let their town decay .. or there was some sort of effort launched in 2002 to start running down the town so that eventually gays could get married ...or maybe something else.  

All I was able to figure out was that gay marriage leads to messy streets and your car getting broken into ... or maybe that messy streets and burglarized cars lead to gay marriage.  

So if you are in a neighborhood where you spot trash in the street and smashed windows, you can rest assured that gay marrige is not far behind ... or has already passed through.