Civil/Human Rights

On Thursday, Rep. Michele Bachmann condemned the Goldstone report, a United Nations-commissioned report on possible war crimes during the Israel-Palestine conflict in the Gaza strip in 2008 and 2009. But it is clear from her press release that she either didn’t read the report or is willfully misleading the public.

Though the Maine Legislature passed legislation to allow same-sex marriage, residents voted against the bill in a ballot measure on election day by a margin of 53 to 47 percent. The Catholic church was a major funder of the forces opposed to same-sex marriage, and as MPR’s Tom Scheck notes, Minnesota Catholic were among those [...]

Rep. Keith Ellison is urging members of Congress not to scrap the Goldstone report (pdf) on war crimes allegedly committed during the conflict culminating in December 2008 and January 2009 between Hamas and Israel. A resolution in Congress, backed by Republicans, would condemn the report, written by UN investigator Richard Goldstone, as unfriendly to Israel. [...]

In making the case for his federal same-day voter registration bill, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison points to how much voter fraud was alleged in the “highly scrutinized” Norm Coleman-Al Franken U.S. Senate contest due to Minnesotans’ ability to register to vote on Election Day: none.

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison has introduced a bill that would extend Minnesota-style, same-day voting rights to all eligible Americans in federal elections.

President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard Act into law on Wednesday ending a decade of efforts by LGBT and human rights groups to get sexual orientation and gender identity included in federal hate crime laws.

The U.S. Senate passed the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday with the controversial Matthew Shepard Act attached. The act would add sexual orientation and gender identity to federal hate crimes laws. The bill now heads to the desk of President Obama, who at last week’s Human Rights Campaign dinner promised LGBT advocates he’d [...]

The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, attached to a large military policy bill, passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday by a vote of 281 to 146 — with support from Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen and opposition from Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson. Next Monday is the 11th anniversary of the murder of 21-year-old college [...]

Al Flowers believes the cops are out to get him. The mayoral candidate filed a lawsuit in Hennepin County District Court today alleging that Hennepin County Sheriff’s deputies violated his Constitutional rights while executing a search warrant at an Edina home last month.

Saying it protects the free market, U.S. Sen. Al Franken sounded optimistic in a speech today about the chances for preserving net neutrality by law. “For the first time, it looks like we might actually do this,” Franken told the Future of Music Coalition in Washington, D.C.