Maine's unusually gloomy summer is a
symptom of gay marriage, one foe says.
In an editorial published Friday in The
Times Record, Michael S. Heath, head of the Christian Civic
League of Maine, a group backing a “people's veto” to repeal gay
marriage in the state, links Maine's lack of sunshine to the
legalization of gay marriage in the spring.
Heath says the “moral climate in
Maine has caused the sun to hide its face in shame.”
“In May, our elected officials
overturned a law of nature, and in its place paid honor to evil and
unnatural practices. Our leaders allowed a cloud of error to hide
the light of reason, and then the rain began. How fitting that this
eclipse of human reason is mirrored by the disappearance of the sun!”
As the global economic meltdown began
last fall, Heath also blamed gay men and lesbians for that calamity.
In a September 25th blog
post titled The Nation Will Right Itself If It Fixes Sex, he
says that the financial crisis is a symptom of America's sinful
sexual culture, including the acceptance of gay unions.
“Our crisis is a symptom, not the
cause,” says Heath. “I am not saying I know whether this
financial crisis is God's judgment or not. It is not for me to know
that definitively.”
But Heath does go on to list policy
changes that would make God “crack a smile,” including: End
abortion rights and defund non-profit groups supporting it, amend
state constitutions to ban gay marriage and eliminate domestic
partnerships and civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, and end
discrimination against private religious schools and homeschools.
In Friday's editorial, Heath also
claims that the newly enacted gay marriage law, which includes
numerous exemptions for religious groups, discriminates against the
“person of conscience.”
“Clearly, it is not the homosexuals
who are being discriminated against,” he says. “It is the
average citizen, the school teacher, the businessman, the pastor or
physician who is being hauled before courts, fined and, in some
cases, imprisoned.”
“In modern America, it is not the
homosexual who is persecuted, it is the person of conscience.”
Earlier in the month, opponents of gay
marriage in Maine, led by the National Organization for Marriage, the
nation's most vociferous opponent of gay marriage, and the Catholic
Diocese of Portland submitted sufficient signatures to force a
November public vote on gay marriage.