On Thursday, The Oral Majority, led by veteran Florida activist Bob Kunst, added Maine to the list of places gays might be least likely to visit. "We are immediately beginning our international boycott of your state until this issue is resolved," said Kunst, faxing Maine Governor Angus King.

King, for his part, had appealed for fairness in television commercials supporting equal rights for all of Maine's gay and lesbian citizens. The Christian Coalition, however, led by Randy Tate, took credit for his group's self-righteous "victory" over the Governor's civilized position. Tate called the anti-gay repeal "a clear victory for people of faith."

The Oral Majority's Bob Kunst called the Coalition's victory a sad triumph of the politics of no-nothing ignoramuses.

Kunst blamed the recent Cayman Islands tourist fiasco, in which 900 vacationing gay males were turned away, on the Christian Coalition's influence there. He pointed to other such influences in the Bahamas where Christian Coalition members demonstrated in Nassau to deny gay cruise landing rights.

Kunst believes its unwise to ignore such expressions of localized bigotry, especially when they become so explicit. "If we're silent and let them pop up in one place without taking action," he says, "they'll simply pop up in others. They'll spread."

"Do you really think I'd visit Qum, Iran as a gay tourist? That's where they chop you in half. A lovely religious regime, to be sure" he says mockingly, "and the Oral Majority says its time we let every nation and state on earth know we don't like this kind of treatment. It doesn't feel good. The least we can do is boycott. Can you blame us?"

Kunst pointed to what he calls "a Jerry Falwell/GOP/Wing-nut 'sexual witchhunt' on the White House."

Maine, he says, is a victim of this phony moralism created by Christian Coalition thinking, and "is sending the worst message to these extremists around the nation to come after us."

"Our freedom is more important than the Maine economy," insists Kunst, "The Caymans and Maine will have to learn this lesson the hard way."

Contact: The Oral Majority: (305) 864-5110.