Maine Gov. Paul LePage attacks teachers union over marriage equality endorsement

Paul LePage The Maine Education Association's recent vote to endorse the marriage equality initiative on the state's ballot was not only the right thing to do, but might help some of its own 24,000 members move toward being able to marry. Maine Gov. Paul LePage's response?

LePage said in a press release that the organization's support for the referendum was an example of the 'political game this union plays.'

The governor further assailed the teachers union for focusing on gay marriage rather than doing his bidding by focusing solely on professional development for teachers. But at the same convention that endorsed marriage equality, delegates also voted to, among other things,

• pilot regional professional development opportunities for educators;
• research the cost and benefits of using technology to provide professional development;

LePage basically seems to be trying to get his attacks on the teachers union over professional development back in the news through the tangent of marriage equality, despite the fact that professional development is obviously very much on the MEA's agenda. So he's managing to be even more outrageously wrong than you'd expect upon first hearing that a Republican governor was attacking a union for endorsing marriage equality.