Political mailings to neighborhoods surrounding Tufts by a Massachusetts-based conservative group are calling Democratic candidate Carl Sciortino a "homosexual, anti-Catholic extremist."
Medford and Somerville doorsteps have been flooded with dueling flyers from supporters of independent candidate and former Democrat Representative Vincent Ciampa and Sciortino in the race for the 34th Middlesex District Massachusetts state representative seat.
The president of the Parents' Rights Coalition (PRC), a conservative group that sponsored the flyer, will speak at Tufts tonight.
Ciampa - who is running as an independent after losing in the Democratic primaries to Sciortino - said he is neither affiliated with the PRC nor had he received any money from them.
"I'm trying to run a sticker campaign, and they've got an issue with Mr. Sciortino," he said. "I'm not familiar with what they support ... other than the fact that they brought out an issue of grave importance."
The PRC opposes gay marriage, homosexual civil unions, and abortion rights.
Ciampa, the 16-year incumbent of the district that includes parts of Medford and Somerville surrounding Tufts, has been waging a write-in campaign to encourage supporters to vote for him Nov. 2.
Ciampa lost to Sciortino by only 93 votes in the Democratic primary campaign.
Yesterday, area residents received a flyer supporting Ciampa that came in an envelope saying, "Last year he and his partner disrupted a Catholic Mass. Now he's about to be YOUR state representative!"
Inside, voters found a flyer entitled "A Special Report on the Homosexual Lobby's Secret Campaign to Install a Homosexual, Anti-Catholic Extremist in the State Legislature."
The pamphlet listed a number of allegations against Sciortino and what it called his "long record as a militant homosexual activist."
Sciortino called the flyer "despicable hate mail," and said it was an "unfortunate distraction" from other campaign issues.
PRC President Brian Camenker said he foresees his message being well-received in Medford and Somerville.
"What we found in other races is that - this is a big problem - how the elected officials voted most of the time does not correspond to how the people in the district feel," Camenker said. "We see that in district after district after district."
But Somerville and Medford voters have historically elected and re-elected politicians such as State Senator Charles Shannon, who supports gay marriage, and Congressmen Ed Markey and Marty Meehan - both supporters of gay adoption rights and abortion rights.
Ciampa has a voting record in favor of both civil unions and abortion rights, but opposes gay marriage.
Camenker said he did not know whether Ciampa supported civil unions. "We don't support civil unions. You're never going to have 100 percent agreement with any political candidate at all," he said. "We basically are pro-life, and he is not pro-life."
The PRC's flyer recounts a June 2003 incident in which Sciortino stood up with his back to the altar during a Catholic Mass in June of 2003 and reportedly kissed his partner.
Sciortino defended his "peaceful protest" of the Catholic Church's stance on gay marriage but said the kiss never took place and was a distortion by the PRC.
"I am a Catholic, and it is important to me as a Catholic to tell the church when it is stepping over the line," Sciortino said. "I did not disrupt, I did not defame, I did not defile my church."
Ciampa called the incident involving Sciortino as described by the flyer "pretty despicable."
The PRC also took issue with Sciortino's activities as chair of what it called the "radical Tufts Transgender, Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Collective (TTLGBC)," including sponsoring coming-out days, founding the Rainbow House, and "advertising a how-to seminar on anal sex."
Camenker said the PRC produced the mailings to counter the pro-Sciortino mailings from non-local gay political action committees and to inform voters of issues that were not discussed in the primary campaign.
"It's not how much Sciortino himself spends, it's the enormous amount of money coming from out-of-state and certainly from out of the district [from gay rights groups]," Camenker said.
He said he has no problem with his message potentially being unpopular.
"Every time you do something like this, these guys run around and call us bigots and haters and say we're spreading bigotry and hatred," Camenker said. "That's their stock answer to anyone who ever questions their activities or comments or does anything - it's that same song," he said.
Camenker is speaking tonight at 8 p.m. in Pearson 104 as one of three panelists in an event titled "Homosexuality and Society."
"There's a lot of questions. Is there such a thing as gay people?" Camenker said when asked about the topics of the event.
The PRC's sister organization, Article 8 - which has the same P.O. Box address as the PRC - is co-sponsoring the event with the Tufts Republicans.
Tufts Republicans President Nicholas Boyd said that Camenker was one of three panelists who are "coming to provide an alternative perspective on gay marriage and gay health issues."
