When Mike Thorne and Jim Theberge moved to Cape Elizabeth with their young son they wanted to buy a piece of land from a local developer and build a house, but it wasn’t to be.

After discussing the purchase with the developer and settling on a price, Thorne said he walked into the office with a signed check ready to close the deal. But what happened next made him feel outrage and confusion. The developer crossed out the agreed-upon price and increased it by $15,000, Thorne said.

“The thing about discrimination is that you’re never really sure about people’s motivations,” Thorne said. “People hide prejudice behind other pretexts.” Instead of building their own, the couple bought an existing house off Old Ocean House Road.

Theberge and Thorne have been a couple almost 23 years and moved to Cape Elizabeth two and a half years ago from Massachusetts, which has a gay rights law. Thorne grew up in Rumford, Maine, but said he was uneasy moving back to the state when there was no law banning discrimination against gays and “someone could legally say to you … we don’t like the look of your family.”

Now, with a law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation signed in March by Gov. John Baldacci being challenged on the Nov. 8 ballot, the couple is afraid the state will take a step backward.

Voters have turned down similar initiatives three times in the past 10 years. Thorne cited surveys showing the majority of people in Maine support a gay rights law, but voter turnout is always low. And “hate is a strong motivator,” he said.

After LD 1196 was signed into law in March, the Christian Civic League of Maine gathered 50,000 signatures to get the question: “Do you want to reject the new law that would protect people from discrimination in employment, housing, education, public accommodations and credit based on their sexual orientation?” on the Nov. 8 ballot.

The law has been put on hold until the voters make their decision Nov. 8.

Theberge and Thorne are embarrassed the decision to repeal the law is even being considered in Maine.

Fifteen other states in the country, including all the New England states, New York and New Jersey, have laws banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and all the Canadian provinces include “sexual orientation” in their Human Rights Acts.

If the people’s veto launched by the Christian Civic League succeeds in striking down Maine’s gay rights law Nov. 8, “we’ll be this island of intolerance in the whole Northeastern United States,” Thorne said.

Closer to marriage?

The couple was in the news last year when they sued in Massachusetts over the right to marry. The lawsuit is still pending, but they said same-sex marriage has nothing to do with the current controversy over Maine’s gay rights bill.

Others disagree. Pastor Phil Andrukaitis of the First Baptist Church in South Portland said the law is “moving us one step closer to same-sex marriage” and a disintegration of the family.

Andrukaitis believes the gay community already possesses the same freedoms and protections as the straight community, but the public is being “duped” into believing otherwise. “They are buying into a lie,” he said.

“We already have laws on the books protecting people from discrimination,” Andrukaitis said. “I have the same rights as the gay community has and the gay community has the same rights I do.”

He said the gay community’s claim that they suffer discrimination lacks evidence. “If that were true wouldn’t there be cases before the district attorney? I think it’s just a ploy,” he said.

And Andrukaitis doesn’t agree with claims a gay person is born gay. “I believe it is a moral choice,” he said.

“Underneath … there is the presence of spiritual entities whose purpose it is to lead people astray,” he said. “I, and the congregation, do not consider the gay community our enemy. They are the victim of the enemy.”

“I say it with love and humility, but I say it without apology,” Andrukaitis said.

When he hears the argument that gay rights legislation will be detrimental to society Theberge thinks of the struggles ethnic minorities and women have gone through in the past. The same grim predictions were made about the ill effects on society of interracial marriage or giving women the right to vote.

Theberge said it is the same bigots from the past putting the issue in the same terms. “People have this deeply visceral feeling they can’t get over,” he said. “Widespread discrimination shouldn’t have to be present to have a law like this.”

Theberge, a physician, said he doesn’t fit the homosexual stereotype and hasn’t experienced any discrimination in the workplace. He said it is an incredible feeling to be at work and be able to be himself without fear of ridicule, but it’s the people who are gay or perceived as being gay in other, less affluent areas of the state that are living in fear.

“They’re the ones struggling just to get by,” Theberge said. Even if a person is not gay, but has a lisp or other mannerisms identified as stereotypically homosexual, “they’re going to be the butt of everyone’s jokes.”

He said the fear held by homosexuals in other parts of the state is reminiscent of that held by women tolerating sexual advances from their bosses or face losing their jobs. Twenty years ago it was acceptable to make lewd remarks to females in the workplace, Theberge said, but now people know it is not acceptable “because it was written down, not just because we’ve had a moral advancement.”

“Laws make a difference,” Thorne said. He grew up in Rumford and said he is aware of a student leaving the school in that community within the last five years because of bullying related to his sexual preference. Thorne said the administration at the school said they couldn’t do anything about it. This law would create a safer environment, he said.

Effect on the workplace

Cape Elizabeth resident Rodney Voisine, who held a Maine Won’t Discriminate fund-raiser at his home last week, said a gay rights law is important in terms of economic development. Businesses considering moving to Maine take civil rights legislation into account, “because (their employees) have to feel comfortable in the state and community in which they live,” Voisine said. “In terms of economic development (the repeal effort) is really anti-business.”

Cape Elizabeth resident Scott M. Clark places himself somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. In April he was recognized by the Secretary of State as the second voter to launch a people’s veto of LD 1196. His reasons for opposing the law differ from those expressed by Andrukaitis and the Christian Civic League. But, his campaign to launch his own people’s veto didn’t get very far.

“There were two basic kinds of people and no one in between,” Clark said, “I didn’t get anywhere because people’s minds were already made up.”

Clark believes there is a place in Maine for a law banning discrimination of homosexuals, but not this law. He disagrees with the fact that “gender identity” and sexual “expression” were included in the definition of “sexual orientation.”

He said including gender identity as a protected class was never discussed in the public forum and was never shown as a class of people who needed protection from discrimination, which he said is important “because there are so many classes of people we discriminate against” but are not protected.

For instance, “if you’re an 18-year-old girl and you’re ugly” and want to get a job at a nice women’s clothing boutique in the mall, chances are she won’t get the job. Discrimination against ugly people “happens 1,000 times more often” in employment than discrimination against people who gender identify as one sex or another, he said.

“The thing is, we allow it … because we don’t want to take away the rights of the employer to hire who they want.”

Clark thinks homosexuality has become an accepted alternate sexual orientation and appropriate discussion is taking place, “but when you get to those areas of gender identity or sexual expression you’re talking about something completely different.”

Thorne said there is a “tipping point” on most societal issues where a majority of people realize a certain position on a social issue is a good, progressive step and not a minority issue. “With any civil rights history there has been a progression from basic acceptance to full participation,” he said.

Mike Thorne and Jim Theberge, right, sit with their three-year-old son Nate at their home in Cape Elizabeth. If Maine’s gay rights law is repealed Nov. 8 Thorne said Maine would “be this island of intolerance in the whole Northeastern United States.”