Great thanks to the Press Herald for the prominent and thorough report on donors to the National Organization for Marriage campaign against civil rights for Maine same-sex unions (information illegally not identified at the time), and for the excellent editorial on the threat such improper secrecy is to fair elections in a state celebrated for its election policies.

The editorial emphasizes key revelations: A supposed grass-roots movement was largely funded and run by outsiders, wealthy financiers who would deny same-sex relationships legal standing and a Catholic organization’s national leadership that takes its lead from the bishops.

The NOM-run campaign engendered fear with claims such as that children would be taught homosexuality in school.

NOM campaign control was tacitly revealed only when votes were counted and its operative took the stage to declare victory – rather than the Catholic Diocese’s Stand for Marriage Maine campaign chair, Marc Mutty.

Mutty later vowed never to work on another such campaign. (The U.S. Bishops Conference gave Portland Bishop Richard Malone a standing ovation, and he was awarded a larger diocese.)

Meanwhile, Malone had beaten up on Maine Catholics with a pastoral letter, bulletin inserts, command homilies and video, and lawn signs in church vestibules, occasioning embarrassment, anger and thousands leaving the church. One local pastor called the campaign “disastrous.”

A single Catholic group breasted the prevailing “pay, pray and obey” church culture, publishing and joining in rallies and canvassing that supported what my husband and former America magazine editor, the Rev. Tom Reese, S.J., have pointed out was no more than what the bishops fully acknowledge for divorced and remarried Americans, Catholic and non-Catholic: legal recognition, regulation and protection.

Instead, Malone, right-wing financiers and NOM were determined that their view of marriage should dictate public policy for all. In the end, Maine disagreed.

Ursula L. Slavick

Portland

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