Gay marriage opponents rally at the Capitol

Stupid closed minded people pushing their own narrow minded beliefs on the world! Sad thing is that have seated themselves in positions that give them the stage! We need to do the same!

Rep. Drazkowski is willing to pick on little kids to make a political point. Either that, or the whole story is a fabrication.

Either way, the man exudes sleaze.

If people like Barb Davis and Steve Drazkowski thinks homosexuality is so sinful, why aren’t they also focusing on the sins against eating shellfish, working on the sabbath day, wearing clothes with mixed fabrics, children who disobey their parents, or protest against zoos who are homes to bonobos, penguins and dolphins where homosexual tendencies have been found in those animals?

I haven’t lived in Mn since 1996 & last visited in 2000; I don’t understand what has happened to the progressive & forward thinking place I once called home. Where did all these small minded bigots come from & why are getting elected ? I hope the DFL is fielding strong candidates and will crush these people.As an aside, I can tell you that letting the people vote on marriage equality is a bad idea- my neighborhood here in CA is still divided post Prop 8 & many relationships both personal & professional have been destroyed.

ERICA FOR THE WIN…..!

“YES LET US VOTE: On Woman’s Rights, Interracial Marriage”

Gay people want civil marriage, not religious marriage. People like Ms. White and Mr. Drazkowski can make their argument in their church. Whether they are right or not is a religious issue.

The Bible is not the Constitution. Someone’s warped view of the Bible shouldn’t determine if two committed gay people should share in the civil benefits their heterosexual counterparts enjoy with marriage.

This article is absolutely awful, oh wait actually the people that it’s being written about are awful. How dare they call themselves people of God when they act the way they do. Doesn’t the bible preach not to judge and to love thy neighbor? All Barb Davis White is doing is spewing hatred and prejudice. And why does it matter that Keith Ellison is muslim? Barb Davis White is black, should we judge her for that? She is one of the most horrible people in this country and she needs to be put in her place.

“Traditional marriage” used to be an arrangement between two men; the groom and the brides father, who paid a dowry and the woman became chatel (property). The outright lies that marriage was defined as between one woman and one man is an outright lie, and it is also false witness. I dare say that Barb would NOT like to revert back to those times, for many reasons. Her bellows are disingenuous at best, and all out fraud at worst.

To those who want a referendum on whether or not gay couples deserve marriage equality, I say voters should not make that decision. Matters of fairness and justice should not be subject to popular vote.

Why? Let’s look at another social fight over the rules of marriage.

When the California State Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage in 1948 in that state, 90 percent of Americans opposed it. By 1958, the number actually increased and 94 percent of Americans said they did not approve of marriages between interracial couples. Then in 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized marriage equality for interracial couples on a nationwide level, 72 percent still opposed it. It wasn’t until 1994 that these people were in the minority for the first time with 41 percent opposing and 45 percent approving.

Thank god we have a constitution and a judicial branch of government to set us right when we make mistakes.

We have been making a mistake by bestowing a bundle of legal federal and state benefits to the majority of couples (straight ones) and not to the minority (gay ones) via civil marriage licenses, even though both gay and straight couples function in society as families in the exact same ways. It is not illegal to be gay, so there is no legally sustainable justification to treat gay couples differently.

Sources:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/28417/most-americans-approve-interracial-marriages.aspx
1948 figure from Gail Mathabane, “Gays face same battle interracial couples fought,” USA Today, 2004-JAN-25.

The gays didn’t teach me how to masturbate, I figured that one out for myself.

“Pastor Brad Brandon, a young pastor from the Hastings area, fired up the crowd by saying that homosexuals teach kids to masturbate.”

Pastor Brandon, meet Pastor George Alan Rekers. You two were made for each other. Fool.

If I see one more “let the people vote” sign I swear I am going to projectile vomit. You don’t deserve to vote on the rights of a minority, you horrible excuses for human beings! Get that through your thick, hateful, willfully ignorant skulls! I mean c’mon, we all know what your “vote” is going to be anyway! GO AWAY and mind your own business.

Erica, I have used this particular argument on extremist cult like religious right groups as well. I have once gotten the response that there is a difference from ceremonious or ritualistic like rules and moral rules of the bible.

The response to that? There are rules on how to treat your slave, and how to beat your wives as well. I guess that’s just in some religious ritual?

And when I have asked the cult like extremists like those at the MFC why is it OK then to have slaves and not now then? why was it OK to beat your wives then but now? We have grown as a culture I was told. Just not enough to accept that they are bigots, racists and are the reasons we need anti bully laws.

I guess its all in baby steps, perhaps they will come to civil and social justice in another couple thousand years?

Until then? We need to vote the right way to not be abused by the religious right with their oppression.

Straight mom of two…..

The left has bankrupted our nation, making all working families work 6 months a year to feed the tax pig and you can seriously bring up Biblical slavery to validate the microissue of gay marriage?

Oh, and democracy is great except when the majority doesn’t agree with your position; then you need the courts to fix society.

Pathetic on both counts.

Jimmy — wake up you idiot. Bush bankrupted this country with a made-up and useless war. Shut up or learn the facts. Read, listen, learn; you don’t HAVE to have an uninformed opinion.

Donna, the pen hit the checkbook decades ago. The war is one bounced check in a bankruptcy hearing. Fact is democrats endorsed the war every bit as Bush; they own it as much or more than he does.

The left ran up the credit card with social security, medicare, medicade, welfare, union favoritism, punitive taxes etc. Now healthcare.

Federal obligations are as high as $79 trillion, about half a million per taxpayer. We need a tourniquet badly, but the lefties keep brandishing their swords.

Jimmy,
The useless wars and the hyper-inflated “defense” spending is where we’ve been wasting our money and ballooning our costs.

Social needs spending is what – 10% of the total budget? Yet we point to the smallest stuff and throw up our hands about how terribly expensive it is, and how that’s what’s going to break our economy.

This empire business has gotten way out of hand, is ridiculously expensive, and has no future. Time to get out of it.

Gays taught me how to masturbate? I did not know that about myself. What an idiot.

[...] Full Story from the Minnesota Independent [...]

Well, Jimmy,

Why didn’t you ask the G. W. Bush Administration that had the majority during most of the years 2001-2009 when federal spending exploded, to stop spending on the programs you mentioned? You and others like yourself should have been marching in the streets in protest.

You also seem to be very confused. Budget deficits didn’t explode under a democratic president, but they sure did under a republican/conservative president. Ex-President Bill Clinton left a budget surplus and money in the Social Security Fund to pay for the program for years into the future, and Ex-President G. W. Bush spent the surplus, borrowed heavily from the Social Security Fund, and financed two wars using supplemental budgets, and I can imagine all his administration heard from you were ****crickets****. It’s kind of immature to blame another person for someone else’s mistakes, but that doesn’t matter to you because the person is not a member of a political party you support. Very patriotic of you when we’re all in this mess together. We should be working together, no matter which party is in the majority, to get ourselves out of this mess.

Of the federal budget Health+Welfare+Pensions is about 60%. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com Maybe more if you figure out what “Remainder” is. Since war is the only business of federal government the 24% defense allocation is the only part arguably legitimate.

Bush’s biggest mistake was pandering to the left with all his compassionate conservative BS. The left rolled him like a bowling ball, traitors that they are.

But our government liabilities have been piling up for decades. Social security is a ponzi scheme as most social programs are. Yeah, conservatives have been complaining all the while to whoever was in charge, and we’ve been called everything in the book for it. Racist is top on the list.

Whoever decided to pay farmers to NOT grow food? Democrite or republican I don’t know, but that is a prime example of the insanity the left has been pushing for a century and it may be time to pay the piper.

So a nasty little troll like Jimmy comes in and derails the whole discussion by bringing up Fox News talking points about whom to blame for the federal deficit (the “Democrats voted for the Iraq war” line is a dead giveaway, Jimmy). Come on, people–don’t fall for his trap. Federal spending has nothing to do with gay marriage! The shameless bigotry of the right wing is independent of their economic ineptitude.

Pastor Brad Brandon, a young pastor from the Hastings area, fired up the crowd by saying that homosexuals teach kids to masturbate. … A group of homosexuals were here and they were teaching a group of high school students that masturbation was OK right here in this rotunda! This must stop!”

So masturbation isn’t OK? Seems to me I learned all by myself when I was about 12 yrs old. What’s wrong with masturbation, Pastor Brad? Inquiring minds want to know.

LOL!!!!! So Pastor Brad Brandon also learned how to masturbate from a homosexual huh? LOL!!!!!

I wonder if they taught that during school the day I was sick. Gee, now I will have to find out when the next class is held so I can learn to do that properly.

These religious fools sure are full of BS!!!!

Most people in America, I’ll bet, look on homosexuality unfavorably. Don’t blame me, that’s the way it is. Want to change that? Good luck.

Most people regard teaching children to masturbate, by straight or gay “teachers”, as strange if not deviant. Don’t blame me, that’s the way it is.

So you can ridicule these people for their religious beliefs and “archaic” attitudes, but their attitudes on this issue are in line with the vast majority of Americans, if not humans on the planet. Look down on them if you want. But IMO you’ll NEVER be successful changing the minds of most people on this. Even if you force gay marriage on the population, the majority will keep on viewing homosexuality unfavorably. It’s human nature, not religious dogma.

So you kind of come off as whining PITAs. That might make you angry, but you’ll probably be better off getting over it and worrying about REAL problems facing society.

Jimmy, all you are doing is speaking for yourself. I am already very, very bored with your comments such as they are – along with reactionary comments including this one.

//Pastor Brad Brandon, a young pastor from the Hastings area, fired up the crowd by saying that homosexuals teach kids to masturbate.//

1. Um, I’m pretty sure I learned to masturbate alone in my bedroom.
2. Oh no! Not… masturbation! People shouldn’t learn how to enjoy the bodies God gave them, and heaven forbid teach them a healthy, safe alternative to underage-sex-before-marriage! :O The horror!

If masturbation is so obvious to everyone then teaching it to children is unnecessary on its face. Some people might wonder if the teachers then are doing it to get off themselves.

Heck, why didn’t I think of that? I could’ve gone room to room in the women’s college dorm teaching co-eds to masturbate properly. Maybe it’s not too late….

Saying masturbation is OK is COMPLETELY different from teaching it. Homophobia amongst the religious right would almost be cute if it wasn’t so blatently disgusting.

“And I said to them, ‘OK, you got two guys and no mother.’ How do they learn what it is like to be a mom? How does she learn that? And that’s what we are here for.””

Oh, homophobia with a dash of sexism thrown in. Gotta love it. And how does the “distinguished” rep know that this young girl will even want to be a mom 20 years from now? And what does motherhood mean to the Rep? Staying barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, letting the man make the money? Get out of the 1950′s and into the real world.

““God’s design for marriage between a man and a woman.””

OT examples say one man and as many wives as he can afford.

Dave says he only got one and sometimes that’s more than he can afford.

If you wanna live by a book that was partially written by people that sometimes lived in caves, knock yourselves out.

Just don’t foul and stain the state capitol building with your breath and devoted ignorance.

Jimmy, Quit trying to pretend you speak for the MAJORITY of Americans. I am sure, if things were as you preferred women would still be property. The stupid-human trick you’ve mastered here is that it doesn’t matter what you think, about anything. Mob rule is tyranny. The issue you have tried to convolude with Faux talking points is that you have a demographic of working of adult tax-payers forcibly paying a higher (single) tax rate in perpetuity, without due process of law or equal protections. These are called civil rights, and the Constitution clearly spells that out. “Masturbation” as the troll calls it is his way of demeaning a gay persons sexual intimacy and right to have it. It is easier to dehumanize a group of people by calling them “behavior’s” or “acts”. The “I’s” may noy be dotted quite yet, but the “T’s” have certainly been more than crossed, and we are coming after those unalienable rights that have been denied an entire people for FAR TOO LONG! Deal with it.

Three cases, Loving v Virginia, Zablocki v Redhail and Turner v Safley that say marriage is a fundamental right. Therefore under the 5th Amendment’s Due Process Clause, the Federal government cannot deny people the rights, privileges, immunities, responsibilities and obligations entailed to marriage at the Federal level. Period. **Inalienable rights**

“Dave says he only got one and sometimes that’s more than he can afford.”

Not sure which is more disturbing: your 3rd person self reference or your implication that a wife is an expensive commodity. You should mention both to your therapist.

Wendy, your angry post leads me to believe you’ve been injured by your family’s rejection of your gender identification issues. You will surely fail if you base your happiness on the approval of others. Do as most everyone else does and accept yourself the way you are. If others (Mom and Dad?) simply can’t handle it, forgive them, and move on.

As for masturbation, claiming it is solely a gay intimacy suggests a very myopic viewpoint. Unlike many or most, I don’t consider masturbation immoral, gay, or unhealthy. Teaching it to children is another matter.

Regardless of what some court says, it’s clear to me that the government has no role in regulating interpersonal relationships, whether straight or homosexual. If people insist on making it a legal issue, then the majority will likely continue to allocate marriage for heterosexuals only.

Lashing out at other people again instead of sticking to the issues, Jimmy? (tsk, tsk) Just go away.

The way I see it, the U.S. Constitution reigns supreme here in America. The people and all levels of government are subject to its provisions – several of which mandate equal treatment under the law, due process and the right to petition for redress of grievances. It also keeps in check the tyranny of the majority.

It is silly to think we as a society can get along without any government role in interpersonal relationships. Family law, probate law, marriage/divorce law are but some examples.

No more silly than proclaiming two men are married. Face it Lane, you want government regulation of interpersonal relationships so YOU can inflict your moral judgments over others. That makes you a hypocrite.

How does allowing 2 men (or 2 women) get married to each other affect anyone else, Jimmy? If the religious right doesn’t like the idea of gay marriage, then they don’t have to get gay married, nor do their churches have to carry out such a ceremony. And since there is already governmental regulation over heterosexual marriage, what’s so wrong with quid pro quo?

Not allowing loving, committed same-sex couples to be civilly married, to have their relationship and family legally recognized and protected by law due to religious reasons is immoral given that civil marriage is outside the purview of religion.

Jimmy, you are not making any sense at all. When has the government gotten in the business of pre-arranged marriages?

Just. Go. Away.

My parents are dead Jimmy, and were very proud of me. Your point? Oh that’s right, you don’t have one. None of you bigots do, so you resort to nonsensical attacks to overcompensate for your… shortcomings!

>> My parents are dead

Did you do it?

“How does allowing 2 men (or 2 women) get married to each other affect anyone else, Jimmy?”

If you say a goat’s tail is a leg, the fact is the goat still has only four legs. It’s not a matter of letting 2 men marry, they simply cannot due to the definition of marriage.

Congress can pass a law, or the courts can mandate that a man can marry a turnip, but in reality he’s just a man and his turnip.

Depends on your definition of marriage, I guess. Most people, who don’t compare same sex couples to turnips or goats, think of it as 2 adults committing to spending the rest of their lives together and caring for one another. If people want to make it out as some mystical union laid down by God, well that’s between them and their church. Frankly, if people are so strong in their own convictions about marriage, why should they feel threatened by gay people?

The definition of marriage is well known. American and European cultures have for centuries explicitly defined marriage as between ONE man and ONE woman; some archaic cultures allow one man and multiple women. Western cultures have arbitrarily disallowed bigamy despite the fact that the US Constitution does not prohibit it. Why not define marriage as between any group of people, varying in number and gender? Age? Species?

IIUC, in Minnesota a man and woman may not marry if they are first cousins. But what if the man is the woman’s son? Is that allowed? What if the man is woman’s father?

Incest is explicity illegal, and rightly so. Bestiality as as platform for argument is a non-starter, as there is no way to obtain consent. Same with marriage to minors. They cannot enter into contracts. Do not use it as a comparison to 2 consensual adults seeking to have their union recognised in the eyes of the law. Changing the traditional view of marriage between 1 man and 1 woman to 2 men or 2 women, IN ADDITION TO hetero marriage harms no one in any way.

“Incest is explicity illegal, and rightly so.”

Why?

Jimmy, your cruel jab at wendy(getEQUAL) about her parents was totally uncalled for.

As for your incest question, I direct you to The National Center for Victims of Crime page discussing incest:

http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=32360

I don’t think incest is illegal unless there is a minor involved. If it is illegal that would be similar to sodomy laws which most would agree are a bad idea.

But if a man and his mother are in a committed loving relationship why should they be denied the “joys of marriage”?

Jimmy forgot his obligation as a conservabagger to repeatedly conflate homosexuality and pedophiles.

“it’s clear to me that the government has no role in regulating interpersonal relationships”

Even a moron can see that there’s at least a legal contract involved in marriage.

Jimmy, you know better than to try using slippery slope arguments when it comes to the issue of gay marriage. It won’t work.

@Dave: you’re close. Marriages SHOULD involve a contract, a privately written one. Instead government rams its version down everyone’s throat, which they have no business doing. Only rich people can get a prenup since it costs a fortune and is even then hard to enforce in court.

@Lane: no slippery slope at all. Since you justify homosexual marriage because the couple is loving and committed how can you justify restriction for ANY two adults regardless of their genetic relationship. If you are for same sex marriage then you MUST be for intrafamily marriage, or you are a hypocrite. Period.

“Since you justify heterosexual marriage because the couple is loving and committed how can you justify restriction for ANY two adults regardless of their genetic relationship. If you are for opposite sex marriage then you MUST be for intrafamily marriage, or you are a hypocrite. Period.”

Hmmm.

What in the sam hill does a prenup have to do with same sex marriage…or even hetero marriage?

“What in the sam hill does a prenup have to do with same sex marriage…or even hetero marriage?”

A prenump is a modification of the marriage agreement that ostensibly favors one party over the other, but not always. It’s a way of agreeing to conditions arising from divorce regarding asset division, alimony, and I presume child support and custody.

Only rich people spend the time and money on such things, so the government enforces default rules based on the collective bias and ordinary folk are helpless under those rules.

This is pertinent because those rules are arbitrary, seen as unfair by many, and reflect the will of the legislature and therefore the majority of voters. This is also why marriage so far is not allowed for same sex couples.

I’d agree with taking government out of marriage, so any group of individuals can enter into whatever contract they desire. Any couple could therefore contract with each other and say they are legally married. Activists would never go for this however since it would not be binding on employers or other interests.

I’d argue that that is the way it should be. If an employer wants to grant marriage benefits to an employee, they should be free to do so according to whatever policies they see fit.

“If you are for opposite sex marriage then you MUST be for intrafamily marriage,”

Non sequitur. Restricting marriage to opposite sex couples is an arbitrary regulation, and so is restricting marriage to non-related individuals. Neither restriction is based on any explicit verbiage found in any Constitution but are moral or perhaps biological conclusions without regard to personal liberty. No hypocrisy there.

“Any couple could therefore contract with each other and say they are legally married.”

How can such a marriage be “legal” if the government is no longer in the marriage business?

Without any legal framework, employers won’t have to extend certain benefits to cover spouses and children. The person would have no say in how his spouse is to be taken care of in a hospital. One would have to testify against the spouse in court because the immunity automatically granted by law will be gone; how does this encourage trust between spouses? The surviving spouse may see joint assets seized by the government or family because that “marriage” is not recognized. And so the mushroom of anarchy would grow quickly out of control … how does that help anyone really?

Also a contract implies enforceability which means government …

Jimmy, your marriage arguments remind me of how the Roman Catholic Church actually closed down social services in some places rather than conform to evolving law that reflects how gays and lesbians are taking their rightful place in society as equals to everyone else. You’d rather shut down marriage for everyone than to see it extended to loving, committed same-sex couples.

Besides, contracts means pricey lawyers …

Nah.

Jimmy, you come across more and more as being frustrated in not being able to marry your mom …

Sheesh.

Enforcing contracts is a legitimate function of government even for a liberty fanatic like me. If you agree to something it is easy to justify enforcing your agreement.

Forcing employers and hospitals to do things is a very totalitarian concept. Employers offer benefits to attract talent and will honor a marriage contract to that extent. If they don’t, the employee would be free to find another that does.

I’m sure the reason hospitals are reluctant to honor unorthodox arrangements is the overwhelming risk of litigation. That should be fixed too. The question of cremation or burial is easy: you put in a will and that’s that. Difficulties arise when deciding to pull the plug or choose a medical course when the patient is unconscious. This is a very difficult situation regardless of sexual orientation. (Terry Shivo is a perfect example.)

By enforcing those contracts, the government will then be in the marriage business after all. So we are back to where we started …

At this point, I’m getting off the carousel that is Jimmy. Everyone else, just be aware that the needle is stuck on the record playing the merry-go-round music …

But those contracts would be entered freely by all participants, unlike now where the rules are explicitly set by force unless you have the money to change them.

>>> At this point, I’m getting off the carousel that is Jimmy.

Stop by for a ride any time; I enjoyed taking you for a spin.

Let the people vote simple as thatmsame for pot let us vote,we are sick and tired of politicians who dont do shit to help the people,enough is enough as Nov. will show.