Changing of the guard The gay state of the state, according to five veterans and observers of the No on 1 campaign BY TONY GIAMPETRUZZI

If gay-rights opponents genuinely feared that keeping Maine's anti-discrimination law on the books would result in the legalization of gay marriage, they were sorely misguided. The real and emerging threat they do face, however, is something that should spook the hell out of them.

What materialized over the past year or so and solidified during the campaign to overturn Maine's law protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination was a changing of the gay guard in the Pine Tree State, and the emergence of a fresh, energetic, and focused effort to effect change in Maine on many levels.

On November 8, in an off-year election, 55 percent of the Mainers who voted rejected an attempt to reverse the inclusion of the term "sexual orientation" in the state's Human Rights Act, a change the legislature made earlier this year. They voted No on Question 1, finally giving gay Mainers the same civil rights afforded other minorities.

Despite the fact that Maine leads the nation on many gay issues — inheritance rights, domestic-partnership benefits, hospital visitation — making a basic anti-discrimination law stick had for decades eluded the state's gay community. This year, after 25 years of trying, the gay community found its holy grail.

The Portland Phoenix gathered five activists and observers close to the No on 1 campaign to discuss what made that effort a resounding success and to consider what comes next for Maine's gays and lesbians.

Participating in the roundtable discussion were Andrew Bossie, the chair of the USM student senate; Ethan Strimling, democratic state senator from Portland; Peter Chandler, chief of staff for US Representative Michael Michaud; Patricia Peard, attorney and founding member of Maine Won't Discriminate; and Noel Bonam, program coordinator of the city's HIV/STD program and director of Thrive, a gay men's social group.

These organizers and observers agree that, of all the successes of the No on 1 campaign, it is the emergence of a new breed of activists that will drive and determine what comes next for a state considering not just gay issues, but issues of health, education, and labor. People such as Bossie, the USM student who led an unprecedented Get Out the Vote effort during "No" and who convinced the USM student senate to pass a controversial resolution denouncing discrimination in Maine, will become the state's new poster children for activism. Already, he and openly-gay Joshua Chaisson, the USM student body president, are gearing up for something big that is very gay-neutral: a vast and ambitious effort to overhaul funding for higher education in Maine.

This year, it's not only issues, but individuals who are key components of the Portland Phoenix's annual scorecard of the accomplishments and the future goals of Maine's gay community.

VICTORY IS SWEET

Portland Phoenix: This year, Maine finally kept an anti-discrimination law on the books. For some activists, the victory's been 10 years in the making, for others 25. How was the gay community not only able to win, but able to win with such a large margin given the fact that it was an off-year election and that a lot of observers really didn't think it was going win and didn't have great things to say about the campaign?

Pat Peard: I think we won this time for a combination of reasons. I think the first reason is that five years have passed since the last campaign, and a lot of people in those five years realized they really do know a gay person and nothing bad happened to them when they got to know that gay person, and they actually liked that gay person. Attitudes have changed.

I also think the campaign itself was the best we've ever run because of people like Andy [Bossie] sitting over here, and an extraordinary field operation that was quiet but very effective. We knew where we had to be and where we had to get the votes, and we put all our energy and efforts into those places and only those places. We had limited resources and we used those resources effectively.

Phoenix: Would you say that strategy, from the beginning, was more on point than other campaigns?

Peard: Well, this gets to my other point — we had the right people, really good people. They set up the right plan, and we executed it, and it worked. We didn't have a lot of infighting, people really stuck together, and they knew what the plan was and stuck to it. We had the right pollsters, the right field people — we really pulled together. We generated a great number of volunteers which supplemented the monetary campaign. The budget we ended up having [roughly $930,000] was much less than what we had [initially] hoped for. Despite that, we raised a lot of money in a short period of time and spent it wisely.

Phoenix: Toward the end of the campaign, many people were very optimistic that No on 1 would win, but that it would be a squeaker. How do you account for the 10-point success?

Peard: One of our goals at the outset was not to win by 1000 votes, but to win big. We wanted to win decisively. To win by 10 points is what we wanted to do, and we did. So, we're thrilled that we were able to execute the plan that we put into place.

Peter Chandler: The field effort was nothing less than the massive operation that happened during the presidential election. I was running the effort in Waterville in November, and we had almost 200 volunteers on Election Day — which is just as many as Kerry/Edwards had in 2004. That was amazing. On Election Day, we canvassed the city three times and called [voters] twice in 24 hours. The results in Waterville proved it, and we improved the margin there a lot.

Peard: Well, we won Lewiston. You know, never! We almost won Penobscot County, unheard of!

Phoenix: Let's face it. Michael Heath [executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, the chief supporter of Question 1, and an opponent of gay rights] actually helped you win this campaign.

Peard: The biggest mistake he made was trying to turn this into a marriage thing. They picked something that they couldn't bring home at the end. They started out with the momentum and got out ahead of us. I'll give them that. But when we were able to get people out to tell their stories of real discrimination, it pushed us ahead.

Phoenix: Those stories, on TV and from the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, really nailed it this time, no?

Chandler: And Michael Heath was calling those people liars! Michael Heath proved that discrimination happens in Maine.

Phoenix: Were there any points, Pat, when you became nervous? A 10-point success was an ambitious goal given the gay community's previous losses.

Peard: It was an ambitious goal. We certainly had nervous moments. It was hard to raise money, and there was donor fatigue on this issue, and we had to deal with the fact that people were being very generous with Katrina during this issue, as they should have been. We had to bring the money in. We needed the money because our really big concern was to make our media buy at the end of the campaign. . . . That, of course, was another key to the win. The media pushed us over the top at the end — it all goes together, obviously; if we hadn't had the field operation, the media wouldn't have mattered a hill of beans, but the combination of the two made the campaign a success.

Chandler: I think the other thing was the incredible message discipline of the campaign. It was something we hadn't seen before. How many times did I get sick of saying, "Discrimination happens in Maine, it hurts real people." But everyone said it. At the beginning of the campaign, polls told us that people didn't believe that discrimination happened, but, by the end, that shifted.

A VERY YOUNG CAMPAIGN

Phoenix: Unlike during the campaigns in 1998 and 2000, students were a major factor in the Get Out the Vote effort. What made students want to be involved and how did that overwhelming effort gel and surge this time?

Andrew Bossie: I think it was a really cohesive, extended campaign. I think a lot of people came together, and everyone was on the same page, and there was no infighting, which, in the past, seems to have been a bit of an issue. Communities were tapped that needed to be tapped, particularly young people. It was a very young campaign, and students did a huge amount of work on campus and worked very hard to get media to recognize their efforts. Every time our opponents were on a campus, we were right there and we were bigger and louder and with a more cohesive message — and the cameras were rolling. If you look at students, 90 percent were going to vote no, and it was up to us — and our biggest challenge — to convince them to go out to vote no. Plus, we took people out of campus and put them right into the campaign to build a bigger field effort.

Chandler: The proof of the student effort in Maine is Fort Kent. The No vote won in Fort Kent! I wasn't there, but it was the students who did it. I think civil rights based on sexual orientation has become the choice issue among students.

Bossie: And, we [students] did it on our own. We met [with the campaign] back in August and we were told, "This is yours. We're not going to send organizers to your campus and make this happen. It's inside, and it has to happen that way. We'll provide you with what you need, when we can." And that's exactly what happened. Students organized, and it was a learning process about communities built from within. It took off because it was students activating other students; it wasn't the oversight of the campaign.