Maine Governor Paul LePage (R) vetoed a bill on Tuesday that would have provided “additional pay to public school teachers who receive special national certification” and specifically pointed to the teachers’ union recent endorsement of a referendum to repeal the state’s ban against same-sex marriage as a reason for his opposition.

In his veto message, LePage claimed that improving the quality of teachers required “a larger more coordinated statewide solution,” before lashing out at the teacher’s union, which would partially fund the certification program. The governor said the union requires teachers to pay dues “which are squandered on a host of activities not even remotely related to professional development” and singled out its position on marriage equality:

“The MEA announced its endorsement recently of the same-sex marriage proposal on the November ballot,” LePage said in a press release Tuesday. “This announcement is an example of what the union is choosing to focus on rather than expanding and enhancing opportunities for teacher development.”

LePage had lashed out at the teacher’s union after members unanimously voted in favor of marriage equality on Sunday. “Too often, however, union bosses worry about a wide variety of efforts — political campaigns, lobbying, protecting bad teachers, insurances sales, and providing golf and skiing discounts — which are not related to furthering the education of our children,” he claimed, dismissing science which has shown that legal and social inequalities undermine LGBT families and their children. Research has also shown that schools that discuss gay and lesbian people are safer for LGBT youth than schools that don’t.

Unfortunately, the governor has a long history of opposing equal rights. In 2010, he claimed that “there is no place for transgendered students in the state’s primary schools” and that the Maine Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination because of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental disability, needed to be reformed.

(Click on the image to read the pledge in its entirety.)

This November, Maine residents will have the first-ever opportunity to vote for marriage equality at the ballot, and though polling is strong and steady for the measure, opponents are just beginning to ramp up their own efforts. Anti-gay conservatives Paul Madore and Mike Heath — activists whose heated rhetoric has been squelched in past campaigns — have launched the “No Special Rights PAC” to oppose the referendum. Today, they took their first action, interrupting the beginning of Pride Week at the University of Maine to distribute a “truth pledge,” which refers to the ballot initiative as promoting “Sodomy Based Marriage.” Individuals who take the pledge are encouraged to refer to the freedom to marry as a “special right,” a “hellish” and “evil” doctrine, and an “attack by demonic forces.” Here are some excerpts:

I pledge that I will:

1. Go to the polls and vote NO on Sodomy Based Marriage in November.

3. Use the term “Sodomy Based Marriage” and avoid the deceptive terms “same sex or gay  marriage.”

4. Inform my friends and neighbors that the term “same sex marriage” contains two contradictory terms, and is therefore, illogical, false, and absurd.

5. Marriage is a Covenant that is entered into between two people and is based on a  difference in gender; and there can be no moral or legal right to a practice which defies logic, common sense, and the Natural Law itself.

9. Reaffirm the Christian Church’s teaching that a child must never be denied the right to have both a mother and a father. Oppose the hellish doctrine that parents of the same sex make better parents than parents of the opposite sex, an evil doctrine which is now being advanced by the homosexual rights movement.

11. Pray that God will deliver our State and Country from this attack by demonic force, and that marriage between man and woman will be restored to its rightful place of honor, to the glory of Almighty God.

The pledge also refers to marriage equality as “an attack on the religious freedom of all Christian men and women” that oppresses, silences, and persecutes “those who hold religious or moral objections to homosexuality” and seeks to introduce “homosexual indoctrination into the curricula of our schools.” Madore also told reporters that homosexuality represents a “culture of death.”

Madore and Heath’s rhetoric is unabashedly anti-gay, but it’s important to note that all of the rhetoric fits the models offered by groups that use tamer language, like the National Organization for Marriage and Catholic Church. By framing the effort around so-called “religious freedom” and protecting children, No Special Rights PAC is fighting with fear and trying to erase same-sex families and the many faith communities that support them.

Bishop Richard Malone of Maine’s Catholic diocese claimed during a press conference this afternoon that the Church will not actively campaign against the state’s ballot measure to approve marriage equality. But according to his rambling “pastoral letter” released today, the Church will continue to actively teach that opposite-sex marriages are superior and that “human society is vitally dependent” on not allowing same-sex couples to marry. Here’s an excerpt:

All of us are sensitive to what are clearly discriminatory acts or speech, or even appearances of being unfair or unkind. Today, the cause for the legal recognition of various human relationships is often equated with non-discrimination, fairness, equality, and civil rights. But when we say that these relationships cannot be called marriage by legal definition, we are not discriminating, but rather, we are marking the obvious and essential difference between marriage and every other form of relationship.

Considering his letter is part of a whole new “Beauty of Marriage” campaign, it’s unlikely that these teachings will be limited to Sunday school classes. After all, during the 2009 ballot initiative to overturn marriage equality, Question One, Maine’s Catholic churches took extra basket collections to support the campaign, contributing well over $550,000. In fact, the leadership of Maine’s Catholic diocese was at the forefront of that fight, with its public affairs director, Marc Mutty, leading the “Yes on 1″ campaign. In the fly-on-the-wall documentary Question One, Mutty described how he regrets his role in the “awful” campaign, and admitted that the campaign used inaccurate statements to scare voters. Watch the clips:

The Supreme Court has decided not to hear the National Organization for Marriage’s challenge to Maine’s campaign finance laws:

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a constitutional challenge to a Maine law that requires those seeking to raise and spend money in state election campaigns to organize as a political action committee for that activity, and make significant disclosures about their financial operations.   That was challenged in a petition, National Organization for Marriage v. McKee (11-599), after the state law was upheld by the First Circuit Court.

Though this may be perceived as a non-event, it represents a huge defeat for the anti-gay organization’s secrecy and as well as its self-victimizing claims that supporters of “traditional marriage” are persecuted for their beliefs. NOM was one of the top fundraisers supporting Maine’s Question 1 in 2009, a people’s veto of marriage equality legislation that ended up passing. For three years, NOM has used this lawsuit to keep the sources of its funding hidden, but now the organization has no other avenues to appeal, having lost every step of the way.

Though their identities remain unknown, NOM has a select group of donors that fund most of its operations. In the meantime, it purports to have a broad base of “members,” even though it doesn’t collect any money from membership dues. It is particularly fortuitous that NOM faces this loss in addition to its similar setback in Washington state, as both states are planning for referenda to approve marriage equality this year. Unfortunately for Brian Brown, John Eastman, Maggie Gallagher, and the rest of the NOM crew, free speech does not come without the cost of accountability, and the world might soon see just how NOM has paid for its.