So it’s speculation time — was Maine’s Peter LaBarbera, Mike Heath, just too embarrassing for the anti-marriage equality peeps working up there? His reason for leaving, according to this release from the Maine Family Policy Council, is that he’s going to be a private consultant. What kind of services can he provide?

Mike Heath, the longtime leader of the Christian Civic League of Maine, announced today that he is moving on.  Expressing appreciation for the League, Heath said that it has been a great honor to serve.

…His first test came on the issue of casino gambling.  When the dust settled he was credited by his adversaries with having stopped a casino from being built in Calais.  Heath went on from there to tackle the most difficult and contentious social issue of our time, gay rights.  In 1998 he was on the leadership team of the first successful People’s Veto of gay rights.  In 2001 he joined once again with Paul Madore and Paul Volle to lead a successful statewide campaign against homosexuality.  Since the early 1990s Heath and the League have expressed serious concerns with the prospect of so-called same sex marriage.  Everyone laughed back then.  Maine will vote on the issue this November.

No stranger to controversy, Heath is often described as a “lightning rod.”

The board accepted Heath’s resignation yesterday during a meeting at the League headquarters building in Augusta.  They expressed unanimous and strong support for the forty-eight year old leader.  Heath pledged his full support to the League.

Heath’s last over-the-top opinion piece, on Sept 12., was yet another sad tirade about marriage equality and deviance.

But in the final analysis, reason and logic are of little use to gay marriage backers. They are desperate to keep the focus on alleged discrimination, while the broader social and ethical implications go ignored.

What, for example, is the cost to society of normalizing various forms of aberrant sexual behavior? Why should a relationship based on harmful sexual practices be accorded the sanctity of marriage?

Is it not true that gay marriage has already opened the door to polygamy? Are all aspects of the homosexual subculture as reputable and wholesome as an episode of “Father Knows Best?” Or are there aspects of the homosexual subculture which are so deviant that they cannot be mentioned here? If so, why put such relationships on a par with marriage?

Let us not portray as wholesome and progressive what every bit of evidence proves is immoral and harmful. Above all, let us not portray as a victory for society what may well turn out to be the Masada of the Culture Wars.

Other classics from Heath:

* Maine’s Mike Heath Blames Potato Blight and Bad Weather On Gay Marriage

* Christian Civic League of Maine’s Heath blames same-sex marriage for Wall Street meltdown

* Mike Heath’s Meteorological Missteps- A Review

* Christian Civic League of Maine’s Heath on the ‘insidious methods’ of the Homo Agenda

* Maine anti-gay hack Mike Heath calls for ‘Save Our State Act’

* Michael Heath Places A “HELP WANTED” Ad