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Crucial Lessons from Maine: Gay and Lesbian Activists in Maine Waged a Successful Battle in 2005 to Stop Discrimination

Published: 9/14/2006

Their Win Was a Combination of Good Planning and Changing Times.

by Fred Kuhr

The television commercial was quintessential Maine. A middle-aged man dressed in a gray button-down shirt sat in a cozy den with a photo over his shoulder of his son at age 2 standing on the beach. Other family photos appeared in close-up as he spoke in a New England accent.

One of his sons had to leave a job due to antigay harassment. "No person should lose a job simply because they´re gay," David Giampetruzzi, who works as a senior planner for the state, said to the camera. "That hurts. All we ask for our children is fairness, and that´s why I´m voting no on Question 1."

Question 1 was the ballot proposal pushed by conservatives this fall. They desperately wanted to repeal the Maine law that protects gay men and lesbians against discrimination. The antidiscrimination measure was passed by the legislature, and it was signed into law March 31 by Gov. John Baldacci.

The Giampetruzzi ad, which aired in the final week of the campaign, was part of an emotional appeal to voters that worked. The "no" side--against repealing the antidiscrimination law--not only won but won big: 55% to 45%.

The victory is that much more impressive considering that this was the third time antigay discrimination was on the ballot in Maine--previous votes were in 1998 and 2000--but this was the first time the pro-gay side won. Maine is the 16th state to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation and the sixth to ban gender identity discrimination in jobs and other matters, yet it is the final New England state to enact a civil rights law for gays and lesbians.

How did activists and gay and lesbian Mainers, on the third try, make prohibiting such discrimination stick?

Observers both inside and outside the campaign credit a number of factors, including a strong and well-organized field campaign led by the group Maine Won´t Discriminate, a poor and disorganized opposition, and the passage of time. Mainers have simply become more comfortable with gays and lesbians.

Tony Giampetruzzi, a freelance journalist who lives in Portland, Maine, was the gay son in the aforementioned TV ad. He says the campaign was more emotionally targeted in 2005 than in 2000, when he served as the pro-gay side´s media director. "Clearly, what we lacked [in 2000] were human faces and the real stories to back up claims of discrimination," he says. "Had we had those, I think we would have been successful that year."

In fact, the opposition repeatedly claimed that the issue of nondiscrimination was a backdoor route to legalizing same-sex marriage--even though Maine law already defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

"Maine Won´t Discriminate ran an extremely effective, essentially conservative campaign," says Richard Maiman, a political science professor at the University of Southern Maine in Portland. "They skillfully kept the focus on the issue of discrimination in housing, employment, etc., refusing to be drawn into a debate on same-sex marriage, which is how the opposition tried to reframe the question. That seemed to make the ´yes´ campaign seem rather hysterical and desperate.

"I think the ´yes´ people realized from the get-go that this issue had passed them by, that it´s simply no longer possible in a moderate state like Maine to argue that discrimination is acceptable," adds Maiman. "Thus, refraining the question was their only viable strategy."

In 2005 there were not only high-profile legislative hearings where victims of antigay discrimination told their stories; there was also a study released in October by the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence that detailed 63 incidents of bias (nearly half of them in employment) to provide evidence that the problem is more prevalent in Maine than many people think.

Giampetruzzi says that in 2005, instead of zeroing in on such larger-than-life events as the murder of Matthew Shepard, Maine Won´t Discriminate focused on smaller instances of discrimination to which fellow Mainers could relate. "That´s something that voters believed deserved remedy once they heard and saw that it has happened," says Giampetruzzi. "The No on 1 campaign pulled out all the stops this time to prove that discrimination in the workplace is nascent in Maine, and they put a face to the charge."

Pat Peard, a member of Maine Won´t Discriminate´s steering committee, says time was definitely on their side: "From 2000 to 2005, attitudes in the state changed significantly in terms of knowing gay people, working with gay people, being friends with gay people, and just being less able to demonize gay people."

Adds Steven Fisher, spokesman for the national gay fights group Human Rights Campaign: "The lesson is that as people get to know more gay people and learn about the challenges of our lives and the discrimination we face, outside of the sensationalism of politics, we win."

While Maine Won´t Discriminate was not involved in the 2000 campaign, Peard notes that gays and lesbians were much more unified this time. "After the ´98 loss, some others said that they would come in and show us how to do it," she says. "So there was a lot of internal division in the community in 2000."

The "no" side was also helped by being on the "no" side, says Peard: "With such questions, people get confused. What does a ´yes´ vote mean and what does a ´no´ vote mean? But it´s better to be on the ´no´ side; if you´re not looking to change things, if you are uncertain, you are more likely to vote no. That´s a normal reaction. People prefer to be on the ´no´ side."

So what can other states--the majority of which still do not have gay and lesbian civil rights laws on the books--learn from Maine´s experience?

Peard has plenty of advice: "Pull your community together before even starting. Bring all the factions to the table. Plan. Centralize the campaign. Use community members to spread the message. Hold neighborhood parties and meetings to train volunteers and spread the word. And stay on message: Discrimination exists, it hurts real people, and it needs to be stopped."

Kuhr is editor at large of the Boston-based LGBT newspaper In Newsweekly.

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