Heath meets with Republican Leadership By Staff Feb 12, 2009 - 4:18:15 AM

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Senator Kevin Raye

Council executive director Mike Heath met with Senator Kevin Raye and Senator Jon Courtney on Wednesday afternoon at 3:30 pm.  The men are the elected leaders of the Republican caucus in the Maine Senate.

The men discussed the legislative session, and the priorities of the Maine Family Policy Council.  Heath left them with a multi-page policy statement prepared by the Family Research Council and invited them to contact him on issues where they can make common cause.

The issue of marriage and gay rights was discussed at some length.  All three of the men agreed that Senator Dennis Damon's proposal to eliminate Maine's Defense of Marriage Act must be killed.

"I was pleasantly surprised,"  Said Heath.  "Senator Raye supports sexual orientation-based laws, often referred to as gay rights.  It was encouraging to learn that he opposes same sex 'marriage'."

Senator Courtney opposes both gay rights and same sex marriage.

The Council views with suspicion all laws that provide legal protections to citizens on the basis of sexual immorality, or without regard to sexual immorality.  Maine's law once forbade sodomy.  After that reasonable law was repealed in the late 1970s Maine started down the slippery slope to where we are now.

Senator Jon Courtney

Camp Kieve, a summer camp in Maine, recently lost a lawsuit brought by a sex-changed camp counselor.  The Camp reasonably forbade the counselor from returning as a counselor of the opposite gender.  The counselor changed genders during the school year.

The university town of Orono erupted in controversy last year over a ten year old boy using the public school girls restroom.  He is being raised by his parents as a girl.

Maine's Civil Rights Teams present homosexuality among Maine youth as morally benign.  Heath attended a presentation by Civil Rights Team leader Tom Harnett last year.  The subtle message of his forty minute talk on civility includes support for male homosexuality.  Harnett's video includes a young teen boy talking about being "gay" and what it feels like for students to not be supportive."

"I'm all for civility,"  Said Heath.  "But I also know that the last thing boys that age need is for adults to be suggesting that they might be homosexual, and providing legal protections on the basis of their exploration of that identity at school."

Thomas Harnett insists that he is not suggesting that anyone is homosexual.  He believes that his role is to protect all Maine citizens from harassment if they choose to identify publicly as sexually immoral.

Harnett plans to have Civil Rights Teams in all Maine schools K thru 12.  His program cost taxpayers $250,000 a year, last time we checked.  It is funded through the Attorney General's office.

While the Maine Family Policy Council has been eager to coalition with other groups and politicians to stop the advance of this agenda no other institutions in Maine have stepped up consistently.  To their credit many politicians, most all of them Republican, have voted against these proposals down through the years.

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