My Friend Fritz
In the spring of 2004 I made the front page of Maine newspapers … again. It started happening with the Peoples Veto of “gay” rights in 1998.
This time was different.
With the advent of email in the late 1990s I started sending out a blast multiple times a week. That spring I sent one that promised to create a website that published the “sexual orientation” of everyone who worked in the Maine State House. Due to the League’s decision to fight big gay using the referendum the issue of “sexual orientation” was one of the most hotly debated political subjects of that time. I figured 14 years of victories for our side in lopsided fights was enough. It was time to switch it up, and try something besides the referendum. I also sensed we were losing … even though we were winning electorally.
My promise to make “sexual orientation” an issue that hit closer to home for political decision makers caught the attention of the press. My email was front page news. My inbox overflowed with hate.
The hate contained a personal animus that I hadn’t really felt up to that point, though I knew it was building because of the League’s refusal to compromise. I was being frozen in place and targeted relentlessly by the League’s political opponents. I apologized.
More front-page news.
The board of the Christian Civic League and I agreed to a paid leave of two weeks.
Front page.
On the day I returned to my duties as Executive Director of the League the Kennebec Journal put Betsy Sweet on the front page. She and her lesbian partner, Dale McCormick, were Maine’s most well known “gay” activists. Sweet ran for Governor in 2018.
It was at this point in my ministry that God sent a helper.
He sent Fritz Spencer who contacted the League and offered to volunteer to write for us. His writing so impressed me that I accepted his generous offer.
I’ve decided to begin this latest iteration of my website with a series of linked articles presenting a portion of the history of the League’s defense of marriage written by Fritz.
