Sunday second collection boosts Maine marriage restoration campaign

Portland, Maine, Sep 14, 2009 / 21:13 pm

Seeking to support a campaign to restore the definition of marriage to a union only between a man and a woman, the Catholic Diocese of Portland asked parishioners to donate to the campaign in a second collection on Sunday.

Officials said the donations will help pay for television ads aiming to overturn a state law legislators passed last spring recognizing same-sex unions as “marriages,” ABC affiliate WMTW News 8 reports.

Parishioner Jane Roy said she hoped marriage can go back to “the tradition as it was.”

“Marriage should be between a man and a woman, at least in the state that I live in.”

Outside the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, where a second collection was held on Sunday, two former nuns from a group called “Catholics for Marriage Equality” said they were disappointed by the second collections.

Fr. Louis Phillip, explaining the collection, said that marriage “pre-dates government.”

“Since the beginning of time, marriage has been understood by people of every faith and culture to be the union of a man and a woman.”

Marc Mutty, director of Stand for Marriage Maine, said 140 churches across the state took a second collection on Sunday. He reported that the churches could have raised as much as $100,000 to $300,000.

"We don't have endless resources and we are scrambling to put the resources together to fund our media buy," he explained.

Voters will decide whether to overturn the state law in a November 3.

CNA contacted Stand for Marriage Maine for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

The Stand for Marriage Maine website is at http://standformarriagemaine.com