A note to my
colleagues in other media outlets: We — that is, you — need to start
calling Michael Heath what he is, and
has always been: the venomous leader of
a fringe hate group.
He is not the
"executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine," even if
that's what it says on his business card (and I don't know whether it actually
does or doesn't).
He has repeatedly
spouted his vitriolic, uninformed, irrational hate for gays, lesbians, and
transgendered people, and has even sometimes gotten that hate transformed into
a question on a statewide ballot.
He took a break for a
while, deciding to oppose gambling, but his most recent action demonstrates
what a charade that was.
Despite being roundly
defeated every time he has tried to deprive Mainers of human rights, he's
trying again. It's obvious that last time, the "Maine Won't
Discriminate" campaign seized on an excellent name for their effort - no
matter how filled with intolerance, Heath clearly knew he couldn't become the
"No, You're Wrong - Maine WILL Discriminate" campaign.
What slogan is he going to
try this time? "Bring Back Bigotry"?
If you really want to
read some of his ill-informed hate speech, click here, but don't say you
weren't warned.UPDATE: And now, an experiment in crowd-sourcing. Below are links to the three most recent CCL IRS Form 990 filings, which are required for the type of organization the CCL is - it's a
501(c)4, if you must know. Anyway, post to the comments (or
e-mail to me) interesting findings and conclusions you see in these records, which are public documents, and which I downloaded for free from
GuideStar.org (a great place to get financial info on any non-profit/tax-exempt organization).
CCL-2004.pdf (702.47 KB)CCL-2005.pdf (589.04 KB)CCL-2006.pdf (616.52 KB)