http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=143793Twin decisions in Maine to postpone indefinitely a "gay" march and a public hearing over rules regarding "transgenders" and their use of the public-school facilities are being described as a victory for traditional values in the state.
"Morality has won a major victory in the state of Maine," said Mike Hein, the administrator for the Maine Family Policy Council.
The formal announcement from the Maine Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Civil Rights March organization blamed the breakdown in its plans for a march on lack of participation from grass-roots organizers on the ground within Maine.
It came recently on the heels of the announcement by the Maine Human Rights Commission to delay a public hearing that had been proposed for springtime on rules regarding the restroom and locker-room provisions in public schools for "transgender" students.
Hein praised the back-to-back decisions.
He said the human-rights rules probably are being delayed for a number of reasons, including commission opposition to the rules proposed by homosexual advocates and the fact that one of the commissioners, Ken Fredette, is running in a primary election in six weeks.
But Christian News in Maine Executive Director Bob Celeste believes there is one major reason for the actions.
"I believe that the homosexual activist groups in the state discovered they didn't have as much support as they thought they did. The movement is running out of steam," Celeste said.
"You know what happens when you turn on the light and expose a bug to the light. They run away. That's what happened with the Human Rights Commission," he continued. "Frankly, they got caught. They tried to ram through a rule that satisfies their agenda, and they got caught."
Celeste said when word of the plans became public, "they backed off."
He said the advocates for alternative sexual lifestyles – even down to grade school – wanted "to put those regulations in place without anyone knowing it."
"They only sought input from their friends," he said.
The rules being considered by the state commission would have required all public-school facilities in the state to allow students access to the accommodations with which they identify. That means a boy who feels he is a girl would be allowed to use a girls' restroom and locker room and participate on girls' teams.
Maine Human Rights Commission members had voted 4-1 to hold a public hearing on guidelines proposed for schools before moving forward, a meeting expected this spring.
But the hearing now has been put off, even though an attorney for the state commission said requiring all students to use "biology-based" restrooms and locker rooms in the state's schools is illegal and cannot be allowed to continue.
"Schools cannot discriminate against sexual identity or gender identification. Schools therefore cannot segregate students based on sexual orientation and identity," said commission legal counsel John Gause.
WND reported in February that the commission had held a closed-door meeting in which the commission took testimony from only a small handful of sources.
"Those meetings were held for the purpose of determining how to implement the regulations, not to find out if the public supported them," Celeste said.
The war, however, appears not to be over.
The march organizers said they know there is work ahead "in the struggle to achieve equality."
"We will attain full equality for LGBT people and families only through the dedication and hard work of people like you," the statement said.
Celeste agreed.
"They'll be back," he said.
Currently, Colorado, Iowa, Washington state, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco have rules, policies or laws dealing with transgender restroom accommodations. The Maine rules would have made Maine the first state in the U.S. to adopt the policies for elementary- and secondary-school students and the first to extend the rules to private and sectarian schools.
This is not the first time the argument has arisen. WND reported when the city council of Tampa, Fla., voted unanimously to include "gender identity and expression" as a protected class under the city's human-rights ordinance, leading some to fear the council has opened the city's public bathroom doors to sexual predators masquerading as protected transsexuals.
A statement from the American Family Association explained, "Tampa Police arrested Robert Johnson in February 2008 for hanging out in the locker room–restroom area at Lifestyle Fitness and watching women in an undressed state. The City of Tampa's 'gender identity' ordinance could provide a legal defense to future cases like this if the accused claims that his gender is female."
WND also reported on a similar plan adopted by fiat in Montgomery County, Md., which opponents said would open up women's locker rooms to men who say they are women.
The issue also has come up in Colorado, where Democrat Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law a plan that effectively strikes gender-specific restrooms in the state.
And city officials in Kalamazoo, Mich., only weeks after adopting a "perceived gender" bias plan, abandoned it in the face of massive public opposition.
Topic: Family-values advocates claim victory (Read 1148 times)