Kunst, who directs The Oral Majority (he founded it shortly after the emergence of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority) has, in the past month, marshaled forces to encourage tourist boycotts of the Cayman Islands.

The Associated Press (AP) has disseminated news of the boycott filed in Augusta (February 18) and headlined "Florida gay group plans boycott of Maine."

Finding—in the South-- groundswells of support for this idea, Kunst's Miami Beach-based organization has suddenly added Maine to its boycott list and is presently shipping thousands of boycott buttons and bumper stickers from Miami to New Orleans where they will become a visible part of the Mardi Gras scene there, he says.

A member of the pro-gay-rights group, Maine Won't Discriminate, Kunst said, had asked him not to announce such a boycott. This gay and lesbian activist group has been silent about its forthcoming strategies and is said to be reviewing its options in the week since Maine became the first U.S. state to rescind state-government-sanctioned same-sex protections in employment, housing, credit, and public accommodations.

A GayToday fax requesting Maine Won't Discriminate's views following the repeal of gay and lesbian civil rights there, went unanswered.

According to Kunst, this group, which is said to have amassed an impressive financial war chest, is also believed to have told Maine's office of the Associated Press that the Oral Majority is not a mainstream gay organization.

Kunst sees the growth of boycott activism in the South as an opportunity for Southerners to be included as participants in major activist debates. Such debates, he says, have heretofore been conducted—for the most part—by ignoring Dixie.

Kunst asked the Maine gay activist, he said, to give reasons for his objections to a national boycott. "Because we live here," the member is reported to have replied.

None of the mainstream lesbian and gay organizations, including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Human Rights Campaign, have suggested boycotts. The HRC, in fact, issued a press release saying, in effect, that the repeal of protections did not truly reflect Maine's more tolerant majority.

Others believe that the state's voters would have turned out to defeat the repeal had the February 10 referendum not taken place in the immediate wake of fierce ice storms. It appears, nevertheless, that Christian Coalition stalwarts did arrive in sufficient numbers at the polls.

Maine's Governor, Angus King, is sympathetic to gay civil rights. Kunst has faxed him, nevertheless, explaining that the Oral Majority will pinpoint Maine tourism, antiques, and lobsters. Telling the governor he feels "totally delighted at the anger and the willingness of the grass roots community to organize and fight back" Kunst says such enthusiasm to help hasn't been seen in South Florida since his Anita Bryant days.

Are there reasons for caution? Another veteran activist, Dr. Franklin Kameny of Washington, D.C., told GayToday he thought that Maine's gay activist group needs, perhaps, more than a single week to map out its next strategic moves. Kameny also expressed reservations—as a general rule--about the efficacy of gay and lesbian political strategies that are hatched outside of an affected area, in this case, Maine. "It is possible to be too far from the center of what's going on," he said.

In both South Florida and in New Orleans, multicolor bumper stickers and buttons are being widely distributed. The Oral Majority released a lengthy list of businesses which have contributed to its cause and are supportive of its boycotts.

Oral Majority strategies are conducted in Louisiana by Jay Wolf, including the distribution during Mardi Gras of boycott paraphernalia.

Maine Public Radio—seeking interviews-- has contacted The Oral Majority, according to Kunst, and Maine's Fox 51 (WPXT-TV) is said to be providing publicity about the boycotts. Fox TV's Miami affiliate has called the boycott organization, reportedly to plan interviews.

Kunst argues that the anti-gay vote in Maine is hardly a local issue. "If the rest of the country fails to show Maine how we feel about this, its going to happen elsewhere...in other states. That's why silence isn't the right answer. Boycotting is."