Gay Republican responds to criticism: Same-sex marriage is a ‘pointless issue’

Republicans suck!

They suck big time! Even the gay ones!

>>> ” I’ve already wasted too much time in responding to you. Good day.” <<<

What arrogance!

Time to retire this Republican.

Wow. That certainly is an…interesting view of how civil rights work.

Way to go !!!!

Talk about pulling out the big balls…um guns.

Now that’s a true man.

So if the people of his district decided they would not follow the law about seat belts and hammered away at Koering to get this law changed, would Koering cave into his districts wants, and not follow his convictions?????

This hypocrite needs to be shown the door, and the people in his district need to wake the F up.

Being gay and the civil union of people is never going to go away. Accept it and be done with it.

Period End!

A Minnesota Republican employs an ignorant bigot. Will wonders never cease!

Turn the Uncle Mary out of office.

It’s kinda sad to see Republicans circling the wagon knowing their time is almost up, isn’t it?

While I do not believe that Rep. Koering deserves the harsh, personal, and frankly immature attacks that he has sustained, I do believe he should be reminded of his role as a legislator. Edmond Burke once said:

“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

Real courage and conviction would have Rep. Koering stand up, vote his conscience, and face the people of SD 12. Anything less is simply pandering for re-election.

1. He needs to remember the difference between a republic and a democracy.
2. Any aide that feels constituent correspondence belongs in the trash, and is a waste of time to which to respond, should be fired.

Good job posting the Senator’s home number. I’m sure that the hundreds of frantic calls he gets over the next month will totally change his mind.

Seriously, I’m assuming it was an oversight, but the cause isn’t going to be helped by the staggering amount of harassment Senator Koering is about to receive.

He deserves every scathing indictment and criticism he will surely receive. Worthless sack of sh*t.

Actually, a senator is elected to make his or her best judgement. Ours is a republic, not direct democracy. Perhaps young Ken needs a civics class?

In the interim, i assume the senator’s office takes a poll of his constituents oppion prior to each vote; wouldn’t want to oppose the People.

Not a very professional piece of communication. One should expect more from one’s public servants. It would have been useful for the Senator or his aide to make a case for his vote, on the merits of the argument, and explain to his constituents the rationale for so doing. Something like: “There is a fundamental difference between mixed gender unions and same gender unions. This difference provides unequal value to society and is deserving of treatment that is also not equal.” This is the essence of any special public policy treatment that legislators enact. For instance, renters are treated differently than homeowners, veterans are treated differently than non-veterans, retirees and treated differently than non-retirees, etc. Unequal treatment itself is not a new concept. The question should be, is the difference between same-gender and mixed gender unions deserving of unequal treatment?

[...] saved a baby’s life in 1968, and now they’ve reunited … this Minnesota politician might as well take his phone off the hook this weekend … Michelle Obama is not our Barbie doll … and until I start recapping shows again, this [...]

Just like back in the day it was right for legislators to promote racial discrimination just because their majority white constituents wanted it that way. Gee, how honorable, Senator!!

Thinly (very) veiled bigotry here. How would this vote “overshadow” the district? Voting and moving on would not reduce the ability to work on economic issues. For an aide to be so arrogant as to think his work would put food on tables in the first place tells me a lot.

This guy is probably very self loathing and not interested in marrying so doesn’t care. How short sighted.

But the real story is in the email his aide wrote. Yes, the amazing comments putting down the constituents, the broad brush approach to all the emailers saying they were all immature and ranting. I doubt it.

But, check out the lack of grammar, spelling and proper sentance construction..amazing. Who would hire this guy?

He & Larry Craig must be best friends!

[...] “In case you have forgotten, we are a government of the People, by the People, and for the People. He was not elected serve his personal interests. I personally believe that instead of sending e-mails full of threats and hateful words you should take his example to heart and congratulate him on being a legislator who cares more about what the People of his district want than what he may want personally.” [...]

Booo hooo gays, seriously, instead of whining all the time, why don’t you change the hearts of people where you live instead of forcing it down their throats to fast and too soon. As a gay man, the gay agenda in this country is “like us or shut the fuck up” It took my parents years and years to accept me and my lifestyle, wtf makes you think that the public should just sit their and agree with you. I am also sick and tired of the argument that you can’t be gay and republican. WTF have democrats done for gay people??? huh??? NADA, they don’t do anything so they can keep telling us that the republicans are the ones hurting us, continue to disenfranchise us so we keep arguing the issue. You all need to turn to your communities, get to know your neighbors, people in your church, be proud of who you are instead of writing and pushing laws and making society accept you instead of them wanting to accept you.

I find myself sympathetic to Koering here.

He’s being asked, “because you’re gay, don’t you support the gay agenda?” And his response is, “uh, has it escaped your notice that THE BUILDING IS ON FIRE?!?”

Unfortunately, his spokesperson gets more into trouble by trying to sugarcoat the response, which detracts from his fundamental point.

He tries to go into the demographics of his district, and personal desires opposed to representational responsibilities, and the subtle effects of marriage laws (which many heterosexual couples forgo), and such. But, really, he’s got a point — if we’re all going to be too broke to marry, who cares if homosexuals can?

I can only imagine the level of frustration that he has, seeing the foundation for liberty and economic success being washed away, and having people continually want to contact him about the trim color on the eaves.

most of you not getting the point. hardworking families do not care about your kinky sexual proclivities, an annoyance to most in good times, an affront in bad times.

A clearly uneducated rural redneck bigot lecturing us on democracy? Try again.

This uneducated politician clearly only wants to get re-elected and doesn’t have the balls to be a strong, independent leader.

Truth is, the educated people of society (from legal scholars to social scientists) overwhelmingly favor gay marriage. That includes everyone from the American Psychological Association to the American Anthropological Association. Surveys keep showing again and again that the higher the education level, the more supportive they are of gay marriage. Clearly there is some kind of correlation here: the dumber they are, the more anti-gay they tend to be.

Now if these uneducated bigots/homophobes would spend just a little more time in school (where they can earn some science and logic) and less time sticking their noses into other people’s personal lives (which don’t affect them one bit), maybe they’ll earn some respect from those of us who are educated and civilized.

p.s. Something tells me this aide is Koerig’s office b*tch. Eeek!

good job sir. while the politicians dazzle us with social issues they are robbing us blind with their lobbiest buddies. left or right we are all being screwed when we look to government to run our personal affairs. get government out of every part of our private lives. my church can marry me and your church can marry you. dont make the personal public.

Gays being bigoted against gays these commenters say? How hilarious!

This. Is. Awesome.

(Particularly the, please don’t think this is specific to you. Priceless.)

why can’t gay people go back in the closet and quit bothering normal people?

“Just like back in the day it was right for legislators to promote racial discrimination just because their majority white constituents wanted it that way. Gee, how honorable, Senator!!”

You must be talking about Senator Byrd right?

What a refreshing change of pace to see a representative represent his district, not the interests of a few, petty losers. Good for you, Representative Koering. We need more like you. To all the real bigots whose snarky comments litter this posting, grow up. You people are not representative of Mr. Koering’s district. I’m sure you don’t even live there.

That was an awesome letter!! Good for him!

p.s. Funny story. A couple of my buddies and I smacked the living daylights out of a poor phobe who wanted to start trouble at a Vegas gay club several months ago…if it weren’t for security, we would have smacked its ugly face to a pulp. But damn! We had a blast!

In the interim, i assume the senator’s office takes a poll of his constituents oppion prior to each vote; wouldn’t want to oppose the People.

Very interesting. I suppose you are the same people who thought the focus group king, Bill Clinton, was the best president ever!

The gay way is my way or no way. I think it’s time to put the leading elements of this ugly little 3% of America back into that nasty little closet from which it came then drop ship it to Iran. Presto, one less face of liberal (Democrat) intolerance and hatred.

That was awesome. I’d have toned down the last few bits, especially if I was about to give the guy home phone number, but in general, very well said.

smack_the_homophobe; typical – smart people agree with me, dumb people don’t. LOL

Oh, and which of those smart psychiatry organizations was it that decided homosexuality was a mental disorder? Were those smart people right?

You’ve all let your biases get in the way of the message of the mass-email.

One: The economic crisis takes precedence over a social issue.
Two: Being child-like in writing him is NOT helping your cause.
Three: Hate filled emails concerning the issue (Which, by the way, he can choose to vote for later. Voting no just means no for now) will be deleted without consideration.
Four: His constituents care more about the economy than gays getting married AT THIS TIME. That may very well change in the future.

It really shows how much you care about your fellow people. “I don’t care if you’re out of a job, I don’t care if you can feed your children, I don’t care if you can see a doctor if you get hurt. Gay marriage is the most important thing ever, and if you don’t agree we’ll send you nasty emails telling you how selfish you are and how big of a bigot you are.”

Grow. Up.

“It’s kinda sad to see Republicans circling the wagon knowing their time is almost up, isn’t it?”

Is that like how it was sorta sad to see the Democrats circling the wagon knowing their time was almost up in 2004?

It’s going to be very sad indeed for people like you in 2 years and then again in 4.

>>> smack_the_homophobe; typical – smart people agree with me, dumb people don’t. LOL <<>> Oh, and which of those smart psychiatry organizations was it that decided homosexuality was a mental disorder? Were those smart people right? <<<

Of course. Which is why they civilized enough to remove it waaay back in the 70s, against the wishes of the uneducated bible thumpers of course. Just goes to show science trumps religion any day of the week.

>>> smart people agree with me, dumb people don’t. LOL <<<

My point exactly. Good boy for figuring that out!

You say “the economy is more important” as if that were in any way relevant, ignoring the facts that 1) legislatures *always* work on multiple, unrelated items at the same time, and 2) it was already up for a vote, and voting “yes” would not have taken any longer than voting “no”. It’s plainly just an excuse, and not even a good one.

[...] überraschend wurde Koering für diese dümmliche Haltung kritisiert. Daraufhin ließ er durch einen Hiwi per eMail mitteilen, wie er zu dem Thema steht (Hervorhebungen durch [...]

[...] Posted by blogger970 on February 23, 2009 From The Minnesota Independent:  [...]

My “wife” does not have insurance because we cannot be married. Does that trump straight families who do not have insurance because of the economy? This “pointless issue” is about family economics and legal certainties and is not pointless to me.

The tone of these comments confused me….I thought I was on the Strib.com for a minute…..

I think it’s hilarious that the Christians in all communities are rallying everyone everywhere to try to get anti-gay legislature passed in as many places as possible… places they don’t live, anywhere. But when those of us in the GLBT community write someone in a state we don’t live to beg senators to reconsider throwing us under the wagon, anywhere… somehow we’re told to mind OUR own business. Why? Because we’re standing or the rights of our kind everywhere we possibly can? Well, how is it that a bunch of people going off so drastically about what goes on in my bedroom or in my marriage vows according to my own religious views NOT an intrusion into my business?

“…instead of whining all the time, why don’t you change the hearts of people where you live instead of forcing it down their throats to fast and too soon” -Jason

Since you’re handing our the advice, tell up how do you propose thqt we change hearts?

I don’t care if anyone “likes” me; I just want the same rights and protections as anyone else, and it would also be nice to stop gay kids from killing themselves. Or are we supposed to wait until people come around?

No matter what they say,don’t give up.Why they push you down?it is because you are above to them,they wanted to be just like you.Believe God and believe onto yourself.

Hi there, I am un employed pot head.
And, my room mate of 7 years is a fisherman. Hes single and works a very dangerous job.
He and I could go get a marriage license and I would get all the benefits from his employer?

I can pretty much rip off the insurance company and take advantage of the IRS shelter too!

If he dies, i get the money from life insurance…. WOW! Maybe I should be looking for a free ride at the opportunity this gay and lesbian movement will give me.

He could have me on his insurance other than the benefits for accidental death. LOL.
Chuck and Larry. I can even get preference for taxes as a married couple too.

And yes, discount memberships at gyms.
And lower car insurance.
And hmm……there so much opportunity here.

Even though my room mate and I are straight… and love hetrosexual intercourse….we can pretend to be married and reap all the benefits of marriage. Since we both have girl friends who are open and maybe they can pretend to be lesbians and defraud the system too? Sounds like a real opportunity here.

Footnote:

How can we prevent fraud and abuse of the system with out actually monitoring if these same sex marriage couples are really having sex?

So some one let me know because I didn’t think america is about discrimination, but america is not about giving people extra rights because of their sexual preference.

As far as i know,
all of the above politicians are indulging in what psychologists term Homophobic Deflection. This is when you say and do things against homosexuals in order to deflect peoples attention to the fact that he is a big ol’ Queen yourself. “Oh Fred Phelps can’t be gay, he hates gays” Big closet case that one. I think the best thing is next time someone sounds off against gay people we should just say ” Shut up, and get a boy friend already”.
Be quick to listen,slow to speak.
Peace…….

mike-

gay people are normal.

They don’t want to bother anyone.

They just want equal rights for marriage.

That shouldn’t be too much to ask, now, it it?

To add to that, as a personal statement, is to say that SF 120 is something that the majority of the People of Senate District 12, the People that he was elected to represent, do not favor this piece of legislation.

The tone of these comments confused me….

Even though my room mate and I are straight… and love hetrosexual intercourse….we can pretend to be married and reap all the benefits of marriage. Since we both have girl friends who are open and maybe they can pretend to be lesbians and defraud the system too? Sounds like a real opportunity here.

all of the above politicians are indulging in what psychologists term Homophobic Deflection. This is when you say and do things against homosexuals in order to deflect peoples attention to the fact that he is a big ol’ Queen yourself.
Sounds like a real opportunity here.