A year ago I announced my candidacy for Governor.  A pro life Catholic woman considered helping my campaign.  She decided to reject my argument that polemic has a legitimate place in political discourse.  She specifically objected to my use of three words, “Faggots are Maggots.”  She wouldn’t even discuss it, and refused to help the campaign.

These are the three words that are breaking my campaign at the moment.  If I fully embrace and defend them there is a chance I will win.  If I continue to hide from them I will lose.

Deservedly so.

I coined the phrase a few years ago.  I wrote a number of columns making an argument based on the idea expressed by those words.  I published the columns in one place.  On my website.  The mega corporation FedEx banned me from wearing their logo anywhere on the planet for the rest of my life for making this political and religious argument online.

One of the first strategic decisions I was forced to make in this campaign had to do with those three words.  It was the same argument I’ve heard my entire forty years in politics.  The words sound mean.  They aren’t nice.  I decided to own them, after actually “hiding” the narrative on my website for awhile.  Realizing the internet is a forever machine I decided to unhide them and move on with my campaign.  Now I’m quadrupling down on the use of those three words in my campaign.  I might as well.  If there’s one thing you don’t do in politics, culture and religion in the West it’s offend a “gay” person.  They never forget.

One thing I’ve learned along the way is that every sexually happy person has a Christian mother.  Nothing brings out the momma bear in a Christian mom like offending their confused child.  I’m learning that in spades during this campaign.

I had two Christian mothers in one day confront me because of this polemic.  One suffers a son who surgically converted himself into a “woman.”  The other had just finished reading an emotionally charged autobiography authored by a crossdresser that apparently mentions me in an unflattering way.  Surprise, surprise.

Look.  I own this issue.  Especially in Maine.  And I have NOTHING to be ashamed of.  Everybody knows that.  And that is why my attitude toward these three words will make or break my campaign.

I drew fire from the ministry I used to lead immediately upon announcing my candidacy in Brewer a year ago.  The Christian Civic League of Maine is ashamed of the work they did for two decades.  The current leader is attempting to blame me.  He knows he is attempting to bury a two decade long politically effective attempt to defend family values and marriage against all odds.

The final chapter in this ideological struggle over just what constitutes a marriage and family is far from over.

Maine will make me Governor because of it.

And you can go crap in your litter box if you don’t like it.