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Saturday, February 7, 1998

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LOW TURNOUT LIKELY FOR GAY RIGHTS VOTE

By A. Jay Higgins, Of the NEWS Staff --

AUGUSTA - Once a week, Marianne Ray drives the 30 miles from Prospect Harbor to Ellsworth to pick up groceries at a large supermarket. If the friends she encounters in town are on the threshold of deciding a statewide issue like gay rights, they're keeping it to themselves.

"I haven't heard anybody talking about it - I wouldn't think anybody cared," said Ray, who is employed as the town clerk for Winter Harbor.

Ray and other rural Maine residents perceive the proposed rejection of a law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation as an initiative driven more by southern Maine activists than their neighbors. A yes vote in Tuesday's election would prevent the law passed last year by the Legislature from extending Maine Human Rights Act protection to gay men and lesbians in the areas of jobs, housing, public accommodations and credit.

"Not one person has asked me about the referendum," Ray said. "We have about 600 registered voters, and I'd be surprised if any more than 40 or 50 turn out to vote."

Her dismal projections are shared by some election watchers who believe the single-issue, special election will fail to encourage double-digit balloting in many small towns. If so, it will be the kiss of death for this year's initiative which has pitted gay rights supporters like Maine Won't Discriminate against the Christian Coalition and the Christian Civic League, both based in Maine.

"If there's a low turnout it comes down to the most energetic voters - not the actual number of people who think discrimination is wrong," said Joe Cooper of Maine Won't Discriminate. "The Christian Coalition is famous nationally for their get-out-the-vote tactics and we need to get the word out."

"A smaller turnout probably favors our side because of our campaign strategy to get the vote out," agreed Michael Heath, executive director of the Maine Christian Civic League.

Maine Secretary of State Dan A. Gwadosky, whose office traditionally provides projections on election turnouts, declined to estimate Friday.

"There's just no recent track record on this kind of special election," Gwadosky said. "The last people's veto we had was on March 11, 1980, to legalize slot machines in the state. It drew 12.2 percent of the voters. So there's no reliable way to project what we'll have next week, although some people have told me we'll be lucky to get 25 percent."

Gwadosky's predecessor, G. William Diamond of Windham, disagreed with both spokesmen for the opposing organizations, and maintained a low turnout could actually favor gay rights supporters. Diamond characterized Maine Won't Discriminate as a "better-organized" group that should surpass the religious right in getting the vote out. Even though some clergy members are expected to sermonize this Sunday in favor of a yes vote, Diamond emphasized not everyone is singing from the same hymnal.

"There's a lot of pulpits out there and this is not a unanimous pulpit issue," he said. "There's a lot of churches advocating a no vote on this issue."

Diamond speculated the statewide voting average in the election might not exceed 17 percent, an estimate shared by Bowdoin College professor and pollster Chris Potholm. Although Potholm definitely agreed that a small turnout will favor gay rights opponents, he was quick to point out that Maine Won't Discriminate's inclusion of Gov. Angus S. King in their television spots should pay off big.

King has been criticized by Heath and other gay rights opponents for entering the debate and weighing in on the side of Maine Won't Discriminate.

"I'm not a potted plant," King said this week. "If I see the ship of state headed for a rock, I'm going to yell, 'ROCK!"'

Potholm says the governor's television ads won't convince anyone to change their vote on this gut issue, but it may succeed in prompting those who agree with him to get out and cast a ballot.

"It alerts all of those people in the middle and leaning toward no who didn't even know when the election was," Potholm said. "If the turnout is higher than 20 percent, his ads could take the credit."