Here in Rhode Island, even the state’s most liberal critics of the Republican Party were a bit surprised yesterday when the state’s Republican governor, Donald Carcieri, vetoed legislation allowing LGBT couples to make funeral arrangements for loved ones.

Despite being the leader of a fairly liberal state, Carcieri pandered to the most extreme of conservative Catholic donors and went out of his way to accuse gay couples of destroying traditional marriage.

“This bill represents a disturbing trend over the past few years of the incremental erosion of the principles surrounding traditional marriage, which is not the preferred way to approach this issue.

“If the General Assembly believes it would like to address the issue of domestic partnerships, it should place the issue on the ballot and let the people of the State of Rhode Island decide,” he wrote in a letter to lawmakers that was quoted by The Providence Journal.

Carcieri’s attitude has long been echoed by Christian Right organizations such as Exodus International, which strives to undermine the constitutional rights of LGBT couples by any means necessary: Opposition to marriage equality, opposition to civil unions, opposition to equal protection under existing hate-crime and discrimination laws, and opposition to equal protection under anti-bullying programs. Like Carcieri, Exodus boasts of having gay family members and friends, as if that (illogically) excuses the indecency and brutality of their antigay policies.

Carcieri was already unpopular even among some Republicans due to his pandering to Rhode Island’s non-existent antigay evangelicals and his inept destruction of the state’s finances. Carcieri fled this predominantly Catholic state briefly last month to seek support from a Massachusetts affiliate of Focus on the Family. Yesterday, Carcieri reinforced widespread disenchantment with his gubernatorial incompetence when he also vetoed a bill that would have prevented the governor from selling U.S. senate seats to the highest bidder, another bill that would promote green jobs in a state facing 14 percent unemployment, and yet another bill that would (gasp!) require lenders to give borrowers advance notice that they’ve been foreclosed.

Carcieri sees his future happening outside Rhode Island, somewhere in the vicinity of the Know-Nothing Sarah Palin-Rush Limbaugh-Tony Perkins celebrity circuit. But if he thinks that crowd has room for yet another sixtyish white male budget-busting talking head, he may wish to rethink.

Exodus International already is struggling with the same problem: How to become ever-more famous by becoming increasingly extreme in a crowd of fame-seekers.

Exodus has been playing that political game with the Christian Right a bit longer than Gov. Carcieri.

In 2003, Exodus spokesman Randy Thomas cozied up with his backers among the Christian Right when he condemned the U.S. Supreme Court’s legalization of sodomy, telling Christianity Today:

“This ruling gives validity to the gay community,” Thomas said. In addition to potentially redefining the family, it further solidifies their position as a political and social force.”

In 2005, Exodus involuntarily detained two gay youths — Zach Stark and Lance Carroll — in its Tennessee ex-gay boot camp. That made great headlines, telegraphing to the Christian Right that Exodus could be as brutal and righteous as anyone. Randy Thomas later borrowed a tactic from the same Christian Right by telling a Big Lie while counting upon public amnesia: “I and everyone I know, have no desire to force others into our line of thinking.” Exodus continues to detain youths and young adults like Bryce Thompson to this day, incommunicado and without legal aid or a patient’s bill of rights.

In 2006, Randy Thomas and Exodus friend Dawn Vedeto condemned a New Hampshire measure to afford that state’s LGBT couples some basic medical and financial options, saying that they were “saddened” because “as same sex marriage or any other sin becomes more widely accepted, those that are truly looking for healing and wholeness can become more discouraged than ever. Healing is possible, I am a living example of that, but I am sure most of those who live in New England and struggle with same sex attraction don’t know that.”

In other words, it seems, LGBT couples who wish to make medical or financial arrangements should be treated by courts and government offices like sinners, not citizens of the United States — and furthermore, apparently, New England should be treated like a foreign country to be ethnically cleansed by righteous conquistadors from the south.

Also in 2006, Exodus affirmed a court ruling that it is not the role of courts to uphold constitutional rights, but merely to interpret laws — no matter how unconstitutional those laws are. Randy Thomas — who spent much of that election year cheerleading for the GOP  — described the constitutional rights of LGBT persons as “obvious degradation of our society.”

Since 2007, Exodus has gradually assumed control of the Christian Right’s “Day of Truth,” a campaign Exodus and preacher Ken Hutcherson to shout down and silence opponents of antigay bullying in public schools.

This year, Exodus board member Don Schmierer co-keynoted the launch conference for a campaign of antigay vigilantism and execution in Uganda. He told Ugandan parents that they were to blame for their adult children’s homosexuality. He also stood alongside one U.S. ex-gay activist who accused the world’s homosexuals of being responsible for the Jewish Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, another U.S. ex-gay activist who uses magic to cure homosexuality, and a Ugandan ex-gay activist who declared that his country’s LGBT citizens were all pedophiles for whom life imprisonment was much too lenient.

In the race toward hatred, what lies next for people like Carcieri and his friends at Exodus and across the Christian Right?

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence on Sunday hosted the National Organization for Marriage’s rally for antigay heterosexual Christian couples. The Providence Journal covered the event.

Antigay couples in attendance listened to Christian music, attended a worship service, and “renewed vows” against gay couples and their children.

One couple in particular, Paul and Lori Thomsen, traveled from out-of-state to convey the message that gay couples don’t love God, their families, or their partners:

“I came because I love God. I love my family. And I love my wife,” said Thomsen, a Warren native who now lives in Mansfield, Mass., with his wife of 21 years, Lori.

These couples implicitly declared to about 20-30 gay people in attendance:

“Marriage is for US and not for YOU.”

Some gay couples who attended opted not to bring their children, for fear of the children’s safety. (Read More)

Today’s e-mail alert from the National Organization for [Heterosexual-Only] Marriage offers a glimpse of the organization’s efforts to merge religion with partisan politics — and to subject civil marriage to control by conservative Christian political activists.

Here’s an excerpt from the end of the alert, which was signed by Brian S. Brown, executive director:

More news: This Sunday NOM president Maggie Gallagher will be speaking at the first annual Celebrate Marriage and Family Day sponsored by our Rhode Island chapter. This day is not intended to be a political event; it’s an opportunity for husbands and wives and their families to come together for an ice-cream social, listen to a nationally-recognized Christian band, renew their vows with pastors standing by, and celebrate the vision of marriage as the union of husband and wife.

But when gay-marriage advocates found out, what did they do? They organized a boycott against a company that donated a few hundred cups of coffee to the event. All Canadian media was agog! Give coffee to bigots!?! (Translation: by “bigot” they mean people like you and me and the majority of Americans, who support and promote marriage as a union of husband and wife.) On the one hand this kind of thing is small potatoes, more bemusing than outraging. …

Then again, here’s what I keep wondering: What kind of movement would threaten to hurt people’s jobs for a few cups of coffee donated to an event to celebrate traditional marriage?

We expect a great event on the beautiful Narragansett Bay on Sunday. But for people who think gay marriage is just about helping two individuals lead their own private lives the way they choose, this kind of thing is a real eye-opener, isn’t it? If gay-marriage advocates act this way while marriage in Rhode Island remains a union of husband and wife, how will they treat traditional faith communities and other marriage supporters, if they succeed in getting the power of the law on their side?

Here, we see a supposed defender of marriage protesting against gay couples who don’t want to consume coffee served by a company that would support discrimination against them and their children. Brown seems outraged that gay couples might make their own decisions about the businesses that they determine to be ethically operated.

That sounds political to me. But if any doubts remain about the intent of NOM’s rally, take a look at the main topic of this very same e-mail. The e-mail begins:

Does the Republican Party in New York want to commit political suicide? Is the national party going to help them?

ACTION ALERT! Go right now and tell GOP chief Michael Steele: No backroom deals promoting pro-gay marriage politicians to Congress!  Not without GOP voters’ consent!

Here’s the background:

New York’s 23rd Congressional district has a special election. NY 23 is what Manhattanites would think of as “way upstate NY”–the northeastern corner. The sitting Congressman, John McHugh, is a Republican whom Obama just named to be Secretary of the Army.

We are talking solid GOP territory. But for some reason (a deal with Tim Gill?) some New York Republican leaders decided that out of all the people they could choose to carry the GOP flag, they would pick Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, one of the very, very few Republicans who have ever actually voted for gay marriage. (Oh, and she’s pro-abortion too, naturally.) This makes the New York Daily News describe her as a “moderate” Republican. But really, is “moderate” the word for a GOP politician who passionately advocates for gay marriage as a “civil right”? (Fight back by donating to NOM’s New York PAC!)

Most of the e-mail alert is a call-to-arms among NOM’s Catholic and Mormon Republicans to write letters to GOP leaders in opposition to GOP chairman Michael Steele — and to “fight back by donating to NOM’s New York PAC!”

In the view of NOM, it sometimes seems that gay couples aren’t the only people who are treated as second-class citizens: Democrats and independents appear to be kicked to the sidelines, too.

The antigay National Organization for [Heterosexual-Only] Marriage is being persecuted by homosexuals, and NOM wants you to know it — because you’re next.

Tim Hortons and Blount Fine Foods were misled about the full purpose of NOM’s antigay cookout and rally in Warwick, R.I. on Aug. 16. When the companies were contacted by thousands of alarmed consumers, the companies revoked their sponsorships.

NOM was going to charge adult diners $10 and kids $8 to eat donated food. Now food may have to be purchased by NOM.

As a result of Tim Hortons’ decision, NOM Rhode Island organizer Christopher Plante tells Xtra.ca that coffee will no longer be served at this weekend’s event. “Time is of the essence,” he says. “Finding another sponsoring vendor is out of the question.” The rally also may be unable to serve Blount’s donated New England chowders.

No free coffee. No free soup. If that’s not life-threatening persecution, what is?

“It’s stressful, it’s sorrowful, it’s saddening,” Plante told The Advocate. “The marriage equality folks are making this a boycott threat. That’s sad. It has become our job now to remind Rhode Islanders that this is what’s to come.”

Wow. Are you as afraid of the future as we and Christopher are?

“This is not about Tim Hortons,” Plante told Xtra.ca. “This is about the organized approach to squash all private and public comments on marriage.” Take that, you… umm… no-good, anti-coffee, marriage-loving-gay-couples!

The NOM rally included Christian singers and a worship service, and its marriage ceremony was to exclude LGBT couples. Nevertheless, Plante maintains that the rally was apolitical and non-religious — and therefore worthy of the food companies’ sponsorship.

That sounds reasonable: When was the last time a conservative worship service and Christian concert were considered “religious”?

A coast-to-coast effort to correct a mistake by Tim Hortons began with a tip by one attentive man in Warwick, R.I., who tuned in to Christian radio and alerted friends online.

“The religious right has presented itself as a majority,” Paul Auger told Xtra.ca. “But when the true majority speaks up, international corporations have to respond to that. People can make change in the world, and that’s a good thing.”

Truth Wins Out received the following e-mail from Larry Marchese, public relations representative for Blount Fine Foods of Fall River, Mass.

From: Larry Marchese
Sent: Monday, August 10, 2009 10:06 PM
To: Mike Airhart; Wayne Besen

Mike,

That is correct.

Larry

Sent from my handheld – please forgive typos

—–Original Message—–
From: Mike Airhart
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:59:44
To: Larry Marchese, Wayne Besen

Dear Larry,

Thank you very much for your communication. Are you stating officially that Blount Fine Foods is no longer providing cash or goods to National Organization for Marriage or its affiliates for the event in Warwick on August 16?

Many thanks in advance for any definitive clarification.
–
Mike Airhart
Truth Wins Out

This is excellent news. It seems that Maggie Gallagher’s rally against gay couples and religious freedom in Warwick, R.I., on Aug. 16 will have to pay for much of its food, instead of receiving free food or services that would eventually be funded by the dollars of GLBT customers of the sponsors. Her anti-marriage organization continues to enjoy freedom of speech, and GLBT New Englanders can continue to eat at fabulous restaurants without worrying about whether their check will underwrite discrimination and prejudice against their own families.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Blount president and co-owner Todd Blount is active in several Christian associations: the Barrington Christian Academy, Barrington Baptist Church, Park Street Church, and LinkedIn’s Christian Business Leaders Network.

I hope that Mr. Blount and his company understand that people of faith can conscientiously disagree about sexuality and marriage. I hope that the company comes to realize that sponsorships which pit some customers against others — and which advance one religious doctrine by making other religious and civil doctrines illegal — are counterproductive.

Corporate, special-interest, and government money and services can sometimes corrupt the democratic process by diluting and suppressing the voices of the people. If corporations are going to sponsor causes at all, I believe they should support causes that advance charity, freedom and equality for all — not privileges for a few.

Please write to Blount Fine Foods at info@blountfinefoods.com and thank them for respecting religious diversity, civil marriage, and a policy of restraint toward culture warriors seeking free seafood.

Revised 2 p.m. Aug. 10:

Tim Hortons has issued the following statement:

Recently, Tim Hortons was approached in Rhode Island to provide free coffee and products for a local event, as we do thousands of times a year across Canada and the United States.

For 45 years, Tim Hortons and its store owners have practiced a philosophy of giving back to the communities in which we operate. As a company, our primary focus is on helping children and supporting fundraising events for non-profit organizations and registered charities.

For this reason, Tim Hortons has not sponsored those representing religious groups, political affiliates or lobby groups.

It has come to our attention that the Rhode Island event organizer and purpose of the event fall outside of our sponsorship guidelines. As such, Tim Hortons can not provide support at the event.

Tim Hortons and its store owners have always welcomed all families and communities to its restaurants and will continue to do so. We apologize for any misunderstanding or inconvenience this may have caused.

Please thank Tim Hortons graciously for its statement — but politely ask them to clarify whether any local store owners will provide support to the antigay rally.

U.S. contact
Canadian contact

Tim Hortons was, at first glance, the best-known sponsor of the National Organization for Marriage’s Aug. 16 antigay fund-raiser, cookout and “worship service” in Warwick, R.I.

(NOM hopes to preserve heterosexist laws against marriage in Rhode Island, the only New England state not to offer marriage equality. Various bills are pending in the statehouse to either legalize or prohibit marriage or domestic-partnership rights for same-sex couples.)

Now a TWO commenter points out that another sponsor, Blount Fine Foods of Fall River, Mass., supplies rebranded foods for Legal Sea Foods and Panera Bread.

Please contact Blount Fine Foods and Legal Sea Foods. Politely ask them why Blount is sponsoring an antigay event that undermines the religious and individual freedom of GLBT customers of Legal Sea Foods — and why is Legal Sea Foods doing business with vendors that choose to harm Legal’s valued customers.

Blount Fine Foods
630 Currant Road
Fall River, MA 02720
Phone: (774) 888-1300
Email: info@blountfinefoods.com

Legal Sea Foods
Quality Control Center
One Seafood Way
Boston, MA 02210
(617) 530-9000

Canadian coffee and doughnut chain Tim Hortons is listed as co-sponsor of the National Organization for Marriage’s antigay cookout and worship service on behalf of heterosexual-only marriage Aug. 16 at Aldrich Mansion in suburban Providence. Rhode Island is the last state in New England to oppose marriage equality.

According to Providence Daily Dose:

The event is “free and open to the public,” meaning that we’re all invited! So come on down! You can pay a modest fee for some hot food (some portion of which may or may not go to NOM/RI and their ongoing fight against the threat of marriage equality here and elsewhere), or you can just brown-bag it.

Tim Hortons is Canada’s largest foodservice operation — by some measures, larger than McDonald’s in that country. It is also the largest Canadian coffeehouse chain — Starbucks is No. 2. It has expanded into the eastern United States in recent years, acquiring local chains and amassing a network of 500 U.S. restaurants as it seeks to push aside Starbucks and New England-based Dunkin’ Donuts.

At first glance, Tim Hortons’ sponsorship of the National Organization for Marriage appears to be in violation of corporate policy against support for religious and political causes. According to the company web site:

As a company, our focus is on helping children and supporting fundraising events for non-profit organizations and registered charities.

For this reason, Tim Hortons does not sponsor individuals, those representing religious groups, political affiliates, book endorsements or traveling sports teams. Tim Hortons does not provide cash donations.

So, why the exception? Apparently, the company allows local store owners to bend the rules as they please. As the company says:

Many Tim Hortons store owners are involved in their community and are proud to support a variety of programs and events on both a local and regional level. Nearly 95% of Tim Hortons locations are owned and operated by independent business people, so the final decision to make a donation is at the discretion of the store owner.

Contact Tim Hortons and give them your thoughts about the value of corporate policies that apparently were made to be broken.

Many thanks to Wesli Dymoke and Providence Daily Dose for uncovering this story.