Minnesota Family Council wants gay marriage at center stage in guv race

Trust a set of numbers cooked up by NOM (nom nom nom)? Forget it.

Hey Andy, found a typo:

“When the poll presented voters with the candidates’ positions on same-sex marriage (***Dayton and Emmer*** support it, Emmer opposes it)”

It should be Dayton and Horner.

Other than that, all I need to say is: Holy f***, it’s going to be Prop. 8 all over again. -_-

What id the question was, “Should the government decide whether two consenting adults should be allowed to marry?”

It used to be easy to get 70% against. Now they have to phrase the question exactly right to get a bare majority. That’s actually progress. With candidates willing to argue a pro-marriage position, it becomes possible to persuade a majority to support equality. In fact, with Republicans already so enthusiastic about voting this year, I can’t see many more coming out if gay marriage is an issue, but maybe it will move some complaisant Democrats to vote. So NOM, go ahead and push it.

It’s interesting….I bet we have alot of laws protecting various subsets of the population, that if put to a vote, would not be supported by a majority of the voters.

I guess human and legal rights are determined by whatever 51% of the people want. I wonder why we even have courts or legislatures? We could just vote on everything.

could have sworn that pocketbook issues were the major concern of most Americans, including Minnesotans.

I don’t much care for the Minnesota Family Council, who push an agenda that is anti-family in my view, with th

I view marriage as a human rights issue that is too important to have knee-jerk, anti-gay people like the Minnesota Family Council decide who gets marital rights and who doesn’t.

It would be interesting to see if NOM only called landline phones. Since people who have landlines are generally 40+ years old, it skews the sample to boomers and elderly. This could be yet another trick in attempts to keep the negative numbers higher than what the general population feels.

We’ve seen how bad NOM is with numbers. During their Summer for Marriage tour they regularly inflated the number of their attendees by 20% or more. Hand counts of those attendees showed this to be the case.

So a poll that NOM was involved in? I am not concerned that it relates to reality in anything more than a “We did do a poll, that much is true” sort of way. NOM would certainly skew the numbers in any way they could to suit their purposes, calling only land lines, asking skewed questions, perhaps calling only church goers and so on.

The article all but validates my suspicion that NOM and its allied anti-gay organizations are not REALLY working to protect marriage, they’re just using anti-gay sentiment to drum up money and support for conservative GOP candidates. Totally shameful.

Andy:

If Dayton lost three points to Emmer when the poll indicated that Dayton and Horner do not support putting a constitutional amendment on marriage on the ballot, then there should have been a three- or six-point shift depending on how you define a point shift. If Emmer’s number stayed the same, then Emmer didn’t gain, Dayton simply lost three points – which begs the point that 42+36+9+10=97, not 100. Where did the points go?

What’s an election without a little muck from the Marriage Nazis?

All the candidates support marriage. Emmer just supports it the least/most narrowly.

Marriage should be protected and it’s great to see that the
Minnesota Family Council has been raising money to defend the marriage laws that we have.

Protecting marriage is the protection of everyone’s rights. The current marriage laws don’t discriminate against anyone wanting to get married.

The institution of the family, defined in marriage by one man and one women is the foundation of civil society. Protecting the family is beneficial for everyone, no matter what your religious beliefs are about sexual preferences.

Tim,

You fail to show how marriage is being attacked by allowing same-sex couples the right to marry.

The current marriage laws discriminate against same-sex couples who want to marry, but can’t. Just like marriage laws which were current in the 1950s discriminated against inter-racial couples since popular majority felt God prohibited such unions.

Furthermore, there are thousands of gay families in America, and plenty in Minnesota, which are hurt by the discrimination in current marriage law. Gay couples with children are forced to pay more in taxes since they can’t legally register as a married couple, which takes more money out of their pockets that they need to feed their children and put clothes on their children’s backs.

This is nothing but prejudice against the queer community for no sound moral purpose.

…..Geez….NOM brought out a new “study”…..like the ones they wisely abandoned before Judge Walker!

Gay marriage rights do not threaten traditional marriage.
Gay marriage rights threaten the faith-based prejudice adn intolerance of the Religious Reich and other conservative social engineers.

Freedom of religion does not extend to denying Constitutional rights to others.

The authority of religious beliefs extends only to those who subscribe to those beliefs. It has no authority over those who believe differently.

Denying existant two-dad or two-mom families protections enjoyed by heteroparented families won’t make them go away, nor make fewer of them develop. That’s like saying there will be more murders if we don’t have the death penalty. Denying gay marriage is actually harming the very institution, marriage, and the very people, children, anti-equality heterosupremist factions pretend to protect. The only reason same sex marriage is even an issue is because religion has taught so many that it’s their duty to micromanage others’ lives, that there is some divine commandment to stick their noses where they don’t belong. Don’t even get me started with abortion, or any of the other so called culture war issues. It all comes down to self appointed arbitors of authority (their authority as “revealed” to them by a fierce, angry, vengeful, jealous, self-contradictory – but, loving – creator) picking fights with innocents who just want to mind their own business. Evangelicals and their apologists, kindly butt (TF) Out.

Ken Pentel

Farheen Hakeem

Two candidates for Governor who continue to experience open, naked political bigotry. From the corporate media, the pollsters and indeed in many places from non-corporate media.

Sadly undemocratic in this psuedo democracy. The best democracy that money can buy.

If anyone really wants to know how gay marriage will hurt the state and the institution of marriage, just look at what happen in the UK.

Once the institution of marriage was opened up to same-sex, the number of marriages dropped considerably because the value of a marriage covenant no longer means anything.

The result in the drop in marriages has drastically increased the number of dysfunctional families, which has caused many children grow up without a mother and/or a father. This has put a tremendous financial burden on the nation, while the children suffer as many studies have shown that the best environment for children is a two parent family with both a father and a mother. The children of this generation will be at a major disadvantage, which will lead to lower education and a lower standard of living.

Maggie Gallagher wrote an entire book about this issue, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially.
http://www.amazon.com/Case-Marriage-Married-Healthier-Financially/dp/0385500858

If you want more information, there are lots of book with more details, consider reading;

Same sex Marriage: Putting Every Household At Risk
http://www.amazon.com/Same-sex-Marriage-Putting-Household/dp/0805431969/ref=sip_rech_dp_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1284570931&sr=1-1

The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today
http://www.amazon.com/Homosexual-Agenda-Exposing-Principal-Religious/dp/0805426981

Correct, Not Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone
http://www.amazon.com/Correct-Politically-Same-Sex-Marriage-Everyone/dp/1607081628

The Criminalization of Christianity: Read This Book Before It Becomes Illegal!
http://www.amazon.com/Criminalization-Christianity-Before-Becomes-Illegal/dp/1590524683/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1284570931&sr=1-1

Tim wrote “Once the institution of marriage was opened up to same-sex, the number of marriages dropped considerably because the value of a marriage covenant no longer means anything.”

This is a Christian-right myth.

For starters it commits the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. In other words, just because X happened before Y, it doesn’t follow that X caused Y. You more frequently see this in Christian right discourse when its suggested that the ban on compulsory school prayer led to naughty things happening in the 60s.

Second, it projects bigoted Christian fundamentalist hostility to gays and lesbians into a complex sociological phenomenon. There are many reasons why marriage might be valued less. Singling out the Christian fundamentalist cause of the day as an explanation isn’t social science, it’s stupidity, but it sells well on the right-wing faith circuit.

Unfortunately for Maggie Gallagher, her argument actually supports the case for gay marriage.

I’m for either Dayton or Horner on the same sex marriage, cause im for same sex marriage, i think it’s not right that gays and lesbians don’t have any rights to get married to one anotheer. I’m personally not a lesbian but i have 3 family members who are, my 2 sisters Robin and Kristy are lesbian and want to get married to their partners but can’t do to these rediculous laws that are against it, and i have a cousin, Kelly, who is bisexual. i Just hope that Either Dayton or horner gets the election. thats all i have to say on this issue.

I think the best thing about same-sex marriage is that it drives flat-earth morons insane.

Discussing it is the second fastest way to get a Kristian to “bear false witness” after #1, basic biology.

i think that same sex marrige should be the the same as man and woman there is nothing wrong with woman on woman or man on man in this country you should be aloud to like and be with whoever you choose there shouldn’t be a huge argument on why gays and lesbians get married just think their getting married it makes them happy becasue there that ones persons soul mate personally myself i am a bisexual i like men and women THERE SHOULD NOT BE A PROBLEM WITH THAT…

oh and if i feel like get married to a woman im going to do it whether all these gay and lesibian haters like it or not

Religious persecution is not a protected religious freedom.

That so many “Christians” oppose protecting gays from hate speech on “freedom of religion” grounds speaks volumes about the level of hate taught by fundamentalist churches.

Freedom of religion means being able to practice your religion and live your life according to that religion. It is NOT a license to interfere with the rights and lives of others.

i feel that man and woman should not discriminate against gays or lesbians. hey f they are happy and want to get married to one another let them its THERE CHOICE!! if its is what makes them happy beasue they will get to be with each other for the rest of their lives than so be it it means that they found hteir soul mate i am bisexual and if i feel like getting married to a woman im going to do it whether all these gay and lesbian hater like it or not !!!! WERE ALL MAN AND WOMAN.SO IT SHOULDN’T MATTER IF WOMEN LIKE WOMEN OR IF MEN LIKE MEN bcause in a way were all the same. Thats my point of view…

Are we going to let the economy, jobs, education and infrastructure go away so we can decide if we want to deny citizens rights because of who they sleep with?

Minnesota, you are better than this.

[...] Horner’s campaign for Governor. However, the big barrier he must now surmount are the polls. The latest poll of the race, before all of these new developments, had Horner at 12%, well behind Democrat Mark Dayton and [...]

I overheard Tom Emmer’s ad this morning that is against Gay Marriage and think it is going to back fire on him big time! One can hope anyway. He is such an ass.
“Let the people decide.”
Well, I am confident if it were put on a ballot Gays would be granted the right to marriage.
I’m hetrosexual by the way, used to vote Republican before the party was hijacked by the far right extremists, which has also happened with the Democratic party and their far left extremists.
I’ll be voting for Tom Horner.

from what pictures Ive seen of Emmer’s family – he has 7 kids…..He better think long and Hard before he starts demonizing any group…..statisically…most likely 1, maybe 2 of his chidren could be Gay……and I wouldn’t want to be him…when he discovers that one of his kids either ..runs away from home because they feel thier father “hates them”…..or worse harms or kills themselves due to daddy’s demonizing of the LGBT community……Im 1 of 8 kids – and I have 2 gay siblings……..Mr Emmer better Really think about WHO it is he’s really hurting with his stance AGAINST the Gay community

[...] Maggie Gallagher, head of the National Organization for Marriage (sic), whose life’s work is migrating from state to state, stirring up fear and panic about other people’s marriages, and funneling millions of dollars into local initiatives to [...]

@Tim – If you truly believe in ‘marriage’ as you define it, are you willing to pass a law forbiding divorce?