Link to Part One.

On Friday, Stand for Marriage Maine released two new ads.

This one was featured on their facebook page.



Ken Graves is the Senior Pastor at the Calvary Chapel in Orrington. He is also the Superintendent of the Calvary Chapel Christian School. If that name sounds familiar, that’s because CCCS is where Charla Bansley and Jen Cyr (who were both in previous SFMM ads) teach. (Does anyone else find it odd that now three people from the same school have appeared in Yes on 1 ads?)

And here’s what I have to say to all of them: You ask, “What is a family?” Your answer, I must say, is severely lacking.
 
A family is many things- not just a father and a mother and children. Some families, as Protect Maine Equality have said and shown in their ads, include children living with  grandparents, a single parent, a step-parent, a divorced parent, two unmarried parents, adoptive parents, foster parents, or gay or lesbian parents. The thing they have in common and the thing that makes them (all of them) great- is the love they have for each other.

The Yes on 1 campaign is trying to take rights and protections away from families. Just because they aren’t targeting all families doesn’t mean that all families shouldn’t be angry about this. 

This is their second ad. Notice the dire background music.



The clip of Monique Hoeflinger is from this year’s Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh, PA, which several members of Advocates for Youth, along with myself, attended. I was actually there in the room during this panel.

Yet again, SFMM wants people to think that we are the liars. But pay attention to their claim. They’re trying to discredit the No on 1 campaign based on the fact that 4 years ago, while we were fighting for a non-discrimination law, we also wanted the right to get married. How crazy and deceptive of us, right?

Please. This is so lame. Are they really trying to discount us based on the fact that we want marriage equality? Especially now, when that’s exactly what November 3rd’s Question 1 vote will be about? They’re basically saying, “They wanted marriage equality then, and look! That’s what they’re fighting for now!” Just because Mainers weren’t asking for marriage rights then, doesn’t mean they didn’t want them. It was true that, then, the non-discrimination law they were fighting for had nothing to do with marriage. If it did, we would have said, “This is about fighting for equal marriage rights for all citizens, whether straight, lesbian, or gay.” We’re not shy about our rights. We speak loud and clear about equal rights.

But in this ad, SFMM has tried to turn that into a bad thing. Should we really be surprised? Probably not when we realize that, as always, their arguments are based in homophobia.

There’s nothing wrong with two men or two women getting married. There’s nothing wrong with two women or two men raising children. There’s nothing wrong with honestly answering when a 7 or 8 year old asks, “What does gay mean?” There’s also nothing wrong with a sex education class discussing the various ways that couples can have sex.

There’s nothing wrong with be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.

There is something wrong with Stand for Marriage Maine.

~ Samantha