Last month a coalition of conservative religious zealots, led by such groups as the Pat Robertson-inspired Christian Coalition of Maine began to collect signatures to overturn—by ballot in November's elections—Maine's recently-passed non-discrimination law protecting same-sex lovers from employment, housing, credit and public accommodations bias.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, though questioned by the Portland Press Herald, has refused to endorse the Maine gay civil rights law. This refusal arrives on the heels of a much-ballyhooed U.S. Roman Catholic Bishops declaration saying that the Roman Church fully accepts and loves homosexual males and females whose orientations, the Bishops note, have not been freely chosen and who must be encouraged to attend church and enjoy loving parental acceptance at home.

GayToday reported (Events, Oct.2) how a 1992 letter from the Vatican had ordered American bishops to oppose legislation that promotes civil rights for gay men and lesbians. The Diocese of Portland, declining to exercise its moral influences, is now officially (or ostensibly) remaining neutral about the crusade against gay male and lesbian civil rights.

Other indefatigable anti-gay religious crusaders promised a people's veto in September and to conduct a "kinder, gentler" campaign than they had in their last such referendum attempt— an unsuccessful attempt—in 1995. Then, after trying to elicit pity for their punitive cause, the people of Maine perceived these neo-politico-religious-thumpers as somehow unbalanced, many critiquing them as grump-laden spoilers.

Even so, these spoilers have once again traipsed the state, boasting that they "overcame great odds" and reputedly managing to have gathered the necessary number of "concerned" signatures, 51,131, to demand in the November ballot a recall of the gay-protective law.

The Christian Civic League's executive director, surrounded by cardboard boxes of anti-gay petitions exclaimed, "It's a miracle of God."

The cardboard boxes arrived a day before Maine's gay rights law was scheduled to go into effect. Its arrival meant that the law must be now be put on hold until after the November referendum.

Some Maine Catholics, not gay themselves, are wondering why the Diocese of Portland has refused to back civil rights for homosexually inclined men and women, especially in the wake of the U.S. Bishop's letter.

Marc Mutty, a spokesman for the Diocese of Portland, said last Wednesday that the U.S. Bishops letter had no bearing on the question his dogma-bound cohorts want answered: "Does the gay-rights law address only homosexuals' sexual orientation, or does it also affirm same-gender sexual activity?"

Mutty dismissed the U.S. Bishops letter by claiming that there was nothing new in it, that it was merely a reflection of long-practiced Roman Catholic doctrine. "This is not an earth-shattering, historic document," he said, referring to the U.S. Bishops letter.

"Mutty is smutty," responded a closeted gay Catholic.