With the opening of the Maine GOP Convention today in Bangor, Sen Susan Collins will take the stage with keynote speaker Sen Rand Paul and Governor Paul Lepage.
The final draft of the 2014 Maine Republican Party Platform again includes a declaration that “marriage be defined as the union between one man and one woman.”
"I challenge Republican Susan Collins as the most senior leader in her party to have the courage to lead on this issue and bring the Maine Republican Party back from the ideological brink. Discrimination has no place in a major party platform,” Bellows said.
Bellows
cut her political teeth with LGBT Rights in Maine.
..... Bellows was on the front lines of the fight, working for seven years to build coalitions on both sides of the aisle to support the freedom to marry. Bellows served on the Executive Committee of Mainers United for Marriage and facilitated the creation of Republicans for the Freedom to Marry.
Collins has been getting a pass on this for years.
“It is deeply disturbing that Republican Susan Collins is so reluctant to take a stance on an issue that a majority of Mainers support,” said Pat Peard, chair of the Mainers United for Marriage, who served on the Executive Committee with Bellows. “In the United States Senate, we need champions of constitutional freedoms for all people.”
Is Collins up to the challenge of leading the Republican Party to a position that is supported by 40% of her party and 64% of self described moderates? A position founded in the precept that all are created equal? Or is she going to allow this mindset to continue to poison the social fabric in the interest of partisan advantage?