No Special Rights PAC, a new anti-gay group, has laid down roots in Maine, where its two founders are hoping to combat a pro-equality push that has led to a same-sex marriage ballot initiative being put to a vote in November.
Paul Madore and Mike Heath, longtime opponents of gay rights and pro-gay initiatives who founded the group, made a public push this month at the University of Maine during Pride Week, where they distributed a "truth pledge" that, among other goals, seeks to rebrand gay marriage as "Sodomy-Based Marriage."
ThinkProgress has a full copy of the pledge, which encourages people to "avoid the deceptive terms 'same sex or gay marriage,'" and to "inform my friends and neighbors that the term 'same sex marriage' contains two contradictory terms, and is therefore, illogical, false, and absurd."
The Associated Press reports:
Madore said he opposes legalizing same-sex marriage because he considers it an attack on religious liberties. He further said homosexuality represents a "culture of death" because of its links to AIDS and because it "doesn’t bring forth life."
Earlier this year, gay marriage advocates in Maine gathered more than 85,000 signatures, nearly 30,000 more than were needed, to secure their initiative a spot on the ballot in 2012.
Pro-gay rights groups have contended that the dynamics in Maine have changed since voters overturned a state legislature-approved measure to legalize gay marriage in 2009. That claim appears to be upheld by recent polling, which showed 58 percent of respondents expressing support for same-sex marriage being legal in Maine.