In yet another sign that the people who decry "sodomy" have no idea what that word means or who participates in it, a recently formed anti-gay PAC in Maine is asking Mainers to sign a "truth pledge" against what they are calling, "sodomy-based marriage" -- which is more conventionally known as "all the fun marriages." Also, they want protection from demons, apparently!
Maine residents will have the chance, in November, to vote to legalize marriage equality, and recent polls predict passage. But two longtime companions in the fight against same sex marriage, Michael Heath and Paul Madore, have formed the "No Special Rights PAC" to oppose legalization. As the Boston Globe reported back in March:
Heath and Madore have held leadership roles going back to the early 1990s opposing gay rights and gay marriage initiatives in Maine. Heath was executive director of the Christian Civic League for 15 years until his resignation in 2009, and Madore once headed a group called Maine Grassroots Coalition that opposed sexual orientation laws.
Madore said he's ready to "take off the gloves" in the campaign leading up to November's election.
"It's going to be a fight," he said.
So, the first round of this fight is apparently this "truth pledge," which was handed out at the University of Maine's Pride Week celebration. The very first part of the pledge reads:
I pledge that I will:
1. Go to the polls and vote NO on Sodomy Based Marriage in November.
Which one would imagine would be adequate to the task, right? But the existence of the numeral "1" indicates that some sort of anti-gay listicle is coming, and Heath and Madore do not disappoint. ThinkProgress' Zack Ford provides some choice excerpts:
3. Use the term “Sodomy Based Marriage” and avoid the deceptive terms “same sex or gay marriage.”
4. Inform my friends and neighbors that the term “same sex marriage” contains two contradictory terms, and is therefore, illogical, false, and absurd.
5. Marriage is a Covenant that is entered into between two people and is based on a difference in gender; and there can be no moral or legal right to a practice which defies logic, common sense, and the Natural Law itself.
9. Reaffirm the Christian Church’s teaching that a child must never be denied the right to have both a mother and a father. Oppose the hellish doctrine that parents of the same sex make better parents than parents of the opposite sex, an evil doctrine which is now being advanced by the homosexual rights movement.
11. Pray that God will deliver our State and Country from this attack by demonic force, and that marriage between man and woman will be restored to its rightful place of honor, to the glory of Almighty God.
So, beyond requiring everyone to willfully get the definition of "sodomy" wrong, it also requires signees to give anti-gay grammar lessons and seek divine intervention against an ongoing demon attack.
Also, the pledge asks signees to "find ten people who each contribute $50 to the No Special Rights PAC before September 1, 2012." I think that what they actually want is for pledgers to find ten people TO contribute $50? As opposed to having them go on a scavenger hunt to find ten people who already have? Either way, if this PAC is hard up for cash, they'd probably have fared better finding funders somewhere other than Pride Week at the University of Maine.
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