Yvette is retired and owns a two-apartment building on East Avenue in Lewiston. She lives on the first floor. The second floor apartment is for rent. Adam and Steve, two homosexual men in their 40s, show up to see the apartment. They like it and tell Yvette they will rent it. They tell her they especially like the location near Lewiston High School because they have a “special outreach” to gay and questioning teens, and this will be the perfect place to bring them for conversation and “more” to “help them find their true selves.” Yvette, a lifelong Catholic, knows from the catechism that the church teaches that homosexual acts are “grave depravity” and “intrinsically disordered,” and that chastity is the only morally acceptable lifestyle for homosexuals, although she would never hear that from her bishop, who is “neutral.” She finds the idea of two active homosexual men living upstairs and using their location to “reach out” to young boys appalling. Yvette says, “Not in my house.”

But Adam and Steve are protected from that “discrimination” by Gov. Baldacci’s gay-rights law. They sue to get a court to order Yvette to rent them her apartment, and to pay their legal fees for going to court. You see, the governor and Legislature feel justified forcing this lady to violate her own moral beliefs in her own property.

Do you think this is far-fetched? Think again. This is the coercive power of the new gay-rights law that will be used to impose moral values on those who disagree.

What the gay-rights law does is to transfer rights from one group to another because it denies persons who find homosexual activity morally wrong the right to choose not to promote it by their property and their businesses. It transfers rights to homosexuals, backed by the coercive power of the law, to force others to approve the way they live despite good-faith objections to homosexual behavior.

It will inevitably lead to affirmative action for homosexuals, as businesses seek to prevent or overcome discrimination claims, and it will affect school programs and teaching.

The purpose of the gay-rights law is to advance the idea that homosexual behavior is good and “normal” and cannot be disapproved, even by others who in good conscience disagree. In other words, the purpose of such a gay-rights law is to impose one set of moral values on those who disagree.

Words can change

For this reason, notwithstanding elite opinions and the sophistry of law professors, the gay-rights law will inevitably contribute to the cause of gay marriage. The words the Legislature added saying that it “may not be construed to create, add, alter or abolish any right to marry” are only that, mere words the Legislature can change at any time. There is no constitutional provision in Maine that prohibits same-sex marriage. The Legislature can rewrite the legal definition of marriage just as easily as it ignored the will of the people of Maine – expressed in two statewide referenda – that Maine not enact a gay-rights law.

Fundamentally, all politics is about morality. Politics is the endeavor to actualize one’s moral principles in law and policy. The Sun Journal recently ran an Op-Ed piece arguing repeal of the federal estate tax would be “immoral.” Whether you agree or not, you can see the writer felt free to argue a tax policy question on moral grounds.

Contrary to the old canard used to silence pro-lifers and people of faith, people engaged in the political process do have the right to seek to impose their morality on society – limited by fundamental constitutional protections for the rights of the minority. That’s what politics is all about. All social welfare laws, for example, are an exercise in imposing morality, by setting requirements or committing tax money to do what is “right” for the disadvantaged. Welcome to democracy.

Likewise, the advocates of the gay-rights law argue on moral grounds, that it is wrong to “discriminate” against homosexuals. They have the right to make that argument, though their case breaks down on examination.

The true purpose of this law is to change the way people think about homosexual activity and to intimidate those who disagree. The law is part of the process of forcing people to accept homosexual behavior as normal, healthy, even good, when their common sense and instinct, biology, and thousands of years of human history tell them otherwise.

False premise

Think about it for five seconds. What would happen to the human race if all sexual acts were homosexual? Is that “normal” or “natural”?

The basic problem with this law is its false premise that reacting negatively to homosexual behavior is “discrimination.” Laws against invidious discrimination exist to protect people from being mistreated due to immutable characteristics, such as their race or ethnic origin or a physical disability, or universally protected freedoms, such as their religion. Until now, discrimination laws have protected persons and characteristics society judged to be good. These laws have never been aimed at protecting behavior that many in society judge to be not good. Not until now, that is.

Unlike, say, race, homosexual “orientation” and behavior have never been shown to be immutable or purely genetic. Even organizations that support homosexuals do not claim that. For example, the national organization P-FLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) offers a booklet prepared with the assistance of Dr. Clinton Anderson of the American Psychological Association. Entitled, “Why Ask Why? Addressing the Research on Homosexuality and Biology,” the pamphlet says:

“To date, no researcher has claimed that genes can determine sexual orientation. At best, researchers believe that there may be a genetic component. No human behavior, let alone sexual behavior, has been connected to genetic markers to date … sexuality, like every other behavior, is undoubtedly influenced by both biological and societal factors.”

Maine people are decent and mind their own business. It is not the status of being homosexual or having that orientation that provokes whatever few negative reactions occur. It is the behavior of homosexuals, males in particular, that people find repugnant when they are forced to be aware of it. That is why all the movies, plays and TV shows aimed at portraying homosexual males sympathetically never show them engaging in any sexual behavior, even though popular entertainment simulates heterosexual behavior everywhere. The activists who support these laws and their allies want to force people to accept and approve of homosexual behavior. It’s that simple. It’s all part of breaking down moral restraints on the sexual behaviors in which we wish to engage.

People of faith

Hollywood, television and popular culture, to say nothing of the media, always portray homosexuality positively, and opposition to such behavior negatively. We have been told that anyone who does not agree is a bigot and hateful. People of faith, of course, have been the special target of this abuse. People of faith do not hate other people, though they may “hate” immoral behavior in themselves, as well as others.

This new law will result in suppression of freedom of thought, speech and action for those who find homosexual behavior repugnant. It is almost unbelievable that behaviors that were criminal only 30 years ago are now celebrated and legally promoted, and you’d better not disagree.

But Maine people have too much common sense for that. That is why they overwhelmingly rejected a gay-rights ordinance in Lewiston in 1993 and then twice rejected state gay rights-laws in referenda in 1997 and 2000. Let us hope that the good people of Maine continue to have the courage to say someone has to stop this somewhere, and let it be Maine.

Bryan Dench is an attorney with 30 years of experience practicing law. His clients include the Sun Journal.