|||
By Jack Beaudoin
Finished reciting the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Rev. Kenneth MacDonald leaned forward at his desk and repeated the moral one more time for the sake of clarity.
The Lord, he declared, would have left those cities alone if he had found but 10 virtuous men.
For the 61-year-old pastor of the Lisbon Free Baptist Church, the import of the story is all too clear: Sometimes the fate of a community - or a state - hinges on a small but committed band of believers.
“Just 10,” MacDonald reiterated, in his soft voice. “That’s all it takes.”
Using his pulpit in the weeks leading up to last week’s statewide referendum on gay rights, MacDonald helped make sure that the town of Lisbon fell solidly in the camp of the Christian right.
In fact, few Maine towns last Tuesday supported the “people’s veto” as firmly as Lisbon. In a referendum decided by just 7,000 votes statewide (about 2 percentage points), the people of Lisbon voted 1,425 to 704 - better than a 2-to-1 margin - to repeal the gay-rights law easily passed by the state Legislature and signed by Gov. Angus King last year.
It was one of the state’s most prominent political moments: Maine became the first state in the country to repeal a gay-rights law. The New York Times, CNN and other national media splashed quotes from Mainers as they contradictorily described the election as proof of Maine’s fine moral backbone, or as evidence of festering intolerance. Read more
Keywords #local-news #politics #religion
Published in The Portland Press Herald
Founded in 1862, the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram is a daily newspaper with a website that serves southern Maine and is focused on the greater metropolitan area around Portland, Maine, in the United States.
