Currently, Maine’s anti-equality forces have been casting for "real Mainers" to play concerned citizens. But the sides–the script the actors are reading for the first round of auditions–being sent out to hopefuls have nothing to do with the upcoming ballot initiative to overturn the state legislature’s vote to legalize same-sex civil marriage.

Instead wanna-be actresses are getting a different politically themed 30-second script, along with instructions how to record and email a video audition. One audition has been posted on YouTube, but seriously, it’s so awful I don’t want to embarrass the woman by posting a link. Just because you can carry the part of Laura Williams in  your church’s production of Oklahoma doesn’t mean you have a future as commercial actress. Here’s what the "waitress" and "school teacher" are being asked to read for their audition tape:

Seventy years ago our national forest was nearly destroyed by fire.
Hardworking people reclaimed the forest, and today it’s providing
recreation and jobs.

But some out of state people want us to forget all that. They’re
bankrolling Measure 10, which locks up thousands of acres, preventing
responsible timber harvesting.

Measure 10 costs over one billion dollars – dollars that would
otherwise support school programs and our local economy.

Don’t get burned again. Vote no on Measure 10.

Granted, the bigots paying for the ad don’t want the actual script to get out, but imagine sending in your tape, making it through the first round, then showing up only to learn the lines you’re supposed to read, the job you’re getting $500 a day for, is part of taking away the rights of your fellow Mainers. That’s pretty disrespectful.

And speaking of disrespect, it’s been discovered–thanks to some clever sleuthing by activists who tipped me off to all of this– that the TV ad isn’t even going to be filmed in Maine with its beautiful shoreline, glorious forests and historical buildings, but rather in a studio in San Francisco–by the same folks who created the"Gathering Storm" commercial for National Organization for Marriage. 

Kinda sleazy. But then what do you expect?