Cathedral of St. Paul. Photo: Wikipedia

In an editorial in the Boston Pilot on Friday, Daniel Avila, a lobbyist and spokesperson for the Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage of the U.S. Catholic Conference, wrote that because being gay is not genetic, it must be the work of the devil.

Avila penned the column in the Boston Pilot, the newspaper of the Boston Archdiocese which also claims to be the oldest Catholic newspaper in the U.S. In the column, he claimed because no definite genetic connection can be established for homosexuality, then logically, homosexuality must be the work of the devil.

Therefore, whenever natural causes disturb otherwise typical biological development, leading to the personally unchosen beginnings of same-sex attraction, the ultimate responsibility, on a theological level, is and should be imputed to the evil one, not God.

In other words, the scientific evidence of how same-sex attraction most likely may be created provides a credible basis for a spiritual explanation that indicts the devil. Any time natural disasters occur, we as people of faith look back to Scripture’s account of those angels who rebelled and fell from grace. In their anger against God, these malcontents prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. They continue to do all they can to mar, distort and destroy God’s handiwork.

Avila is one of the top employees of the Roman Catholic Church working to deny same-sex couples the right to marry. He previously worked for the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, the public-policy arm of the Massachusetts Catholic Bishops.

He also describes himself as the church’s “marriage guy.”

Along party lines, the House Civil Law Committee passed a bill Monday to put a constitutional amendment that would restrict marriage in Minnesota to one man and one woman before voters. In a hearing in which religious leaders far outnumbered legal testifiers, emotions ran high as the father of a gay soldier killed in Afghanistan appealed to veterans to oppose the amendment.

The committee heard several hours of testimony, including that of Bishop Bob Battle of the Berean Church of God in Christ. Battle said, “I don’t consider gay marriages as the same as whites not being allowed to marry blacks.”

“Gay marriage advocates have attempted to hijack the civil rights movement,” he said. “I know what civil rights are, and gays in America have all the civil rights as anyone else.”

He pointed out the right to vote, the right to housing, the right to employment and “the right to ride in the front of the bus.”

Despite that testimony, 40 states currently allow discrimination against LGBT people in employment, housing and public accommodations.

Battle added, “God gave marriage as a gift to Adam and Eve.”

On the other side, Jeff Wilfarht used his time in front of the community not to rally the support of legislators but to urge veterans to oppose the amendment. His son, Cpl. Andrew Wilfahrt, died in an attack in Afghanistan and was an openly gay man before he enlisted (and, despite “don’t ask don’t tell,” was open with his unit, according to his family).

Wilfarht told the committee that he realized none of the supporters of the amendment would change their minds, so he appealed to the veterans of Minnesota to oppose the amendment.

“Veterans living in Minnesota are not going to take kindly to tampering with the constitution they fight to defend,” he said, “with an iron-clad exclusion and removal of a civil right to a minority group.”

“The constitution is being toyed with. There are shenanigans afoot.”

While testifiers in support of the amendment repeated that marriage has had the same definition for all of history, some members of the DFL had problems with that revisionism.

“The definition of marriage used to be about property: Me, as property passed from my father to my husband,” said Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Minneapolis. “The definition of civil marriage has evolved over time — and thank God it has.”

She added, “I appeal to you not to put the question of fundamental civil rights to a majority vote.”

Rep. John Lesch, DFL-St. Paul, said that just like other hot-button-issue ballot measure of the past, such as abortion, the proposed amendment will not stand the test of time.

“Members you know that this is a hot issue before the voters today, and maybe it’ll get you some votes in the election a year and a half from now,” he said. “This thing is going to end up getting repealed, just like Prohibition.”

Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-St. Louis Park, said this appears like an attempt to “enshrine religious beliefs” into the Minnesota Constitution, especially considering almost all the testifiers in support were religious leaders.

“I’m Jewish. Eating pork or shellfish is not allowed in my tradition, but I would never ask the government to impose that on our fellow citizens.”

He got down to brass tacks with the committee members. “How much of homosexuality is nature versus nurture? Is this just another lifestyle choice like skateboarding or gardening?”

He referenced a testifier who said “sexuality and sexual orientation are a gift from God.” He said, “I think that’s true, and I would ask everyone on this committee, if that’s true, if it’s even possibly true, what does that do to the moral force of your argument?”

He continued, “How many more gay people does God have to create before we accept that God actually wants them around?”

That question generated shouts of approval and applause from the crowd gathered in the committee room.

“I truly believe that in a generation, if we pass this, that generation and maybe sooner will judge us all very harshly,” he concluded.

The bill passed the committee along party lines by a vote of 10 to 7.

Update: The UpTake has footage of Rep. Steve Simon’s testimony:

Republicans in the Minnesota Senate introduced three bills on Tuesday that aim to put a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage before voters in 2012. Minnesota law already outlaws same-sex marriage. State Democrats say the bill is a distraction from the economic crisis — and a state budget that the GOP has yet to pass.

Maple Grove Republican Sen. Warren Limmer, the measure’s chief author, said the bill was not about putting forth an issue that’d boost voter turnout for the GOP in 2012. “Quite honestly, it could cut both ways,” he said at a press conference. “We believe we owe the public the opportunity to be engaged.”

When asked about the timing of the bill and if he thought there would be a backlash, he said, “Personally I don’t think there’s going to be that much backlash on this. We want to give the public as much time as possible to consider it.”

The bill will be fast-tracked to meet Friday’s committee deadline for bills, Limmer said, and it will receive a hearing this week.

Sen. Paul Gazelka of Brainerd was questioned by reporters about whether his district is open to such an amendment considering he defeated the state’s only gay Republican, former Sen. Paul Koering, in the 2010 primary.

“The district, which I think reflects the state, wants gays and lesbians to live how they choose, but doesn’t want to redefine marriage,” he said.

Since the bill is a ballot initiative, it will bypass Gov. Mark Dayton’s veto pen should it pass both chambers of the Legislature, which — since both bodies are controlled by Republicans — it seems likely to do.

The ballot question would read, “Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?”

DFLers called the amendment push a distraction.

“It’s disturbing that Republicans want to use one of the last weeks of the legislative session to marginalize one group of people and divide our state,” Sen. Scott Dibble of Minneapolis said. “We are facing a $5 billion budget shortfall, yet Republicans believe the biggest threat to our state’s welfare is who is allowed to be married.”

He added, “For same-sex couples, marriage is about economics; it’s about allowing families to take responsibility for each other and support their loved ones, creating strong households throughout our state. For this reason, there is significant evidence that the states that do the best economically are the ones that embrace diversity, not shut it out.”

“With this amendment, we are taking Minnesota in exactly the opposite direction of where we should be headed – toward a stronger economy that welcomes the contributions of all people,” he said.

Sen. Tom Bakk of Cook said, “Prior to the Easter recess, I told the Republican leadership when we got back there would be four weeks left to the session,” said Bakk. ” I don’t know if they don’t understand the budget challenges they face. It is time to get to work on these budget bills. These policy type issues can wait until next year.”

“When we reach May 23 with no budget deal, I will say to them, ‘I told you back in April, I told you to start focusing on the budget every day,’” he added.

Dibble said he expects that the Mormon Church and the Catholic Church to step in and spend tens of millions of dollars on a campaign to pass the amendment.

“The archbishop is probably going to try and raise millions of dollars on this,” he said. “We already saw his DVD campaign last year.”

In addition to Limmer and Gazelka, the bill was introduced by Sens. David Hann of Eden Prairie, Benjamin Kruse of Brooklyn Park, David Brown of Becker, Mike Parry of Waseca, Dave Thompson of Lakeville, Sean Nienow of Cambridge, Dan Hall of Burnsville, Pam Wolf of Spring Lake Park, Gretchen Hoffman of Vergas and Bill Ingebrigtsen of Alexandria.

Judge Mary DuFresne dismissed a lawsuit by three Minnesota same-sex couples seeking the right to marry on Tuesday. DuFresne dismissed the suit with prejudice, meaning the decision can be appealed. The couples — Duane Gajewski and Doug Benson, Lindzi Campbell and Jesse Dykhuis, John Rittman and Tom Trisko — have vowed to bring their case to a higher court. The case was filed in Minnesota’s Fourth District Court after the couples were denied marriage licenses in Hennepin County in spring 2010.

“We didn’t know what the judges were going to do when we decided to pursue the lawsuit,” Benson told the Minnesota Independent. “We are going to continue to head down the road.”

The couples plan to appeal shortly, Benson said. He added that the decision amounted to a pass by the lower court which thinks the Minnesota Supreme Court will have to decide the case. The highest court had weighed in almost four decades ago in Baker v. Nelson, which ruled that the state could ban gay marriage. The plaintiffs are hoping that enough laws and attitudes have changed that the court would overturn that precedent.

The decision is a blow to the couples, however.

“Thousands of Minnesotans who only wanted to have their relationships recognized got the back of the hand from the judge,” Benson said.

Benson and the other couples have asked Gov. Mark Dayton and Attorney General Lori Swanson to end defense of the state’s Defense of Marriage Act citing the decision by President Obama to do the same last month.

On the first day of the legislative session, the Republican majority in the Minnesota House voted down an amendment to the rules that would put fixing the state budget deficit before any constitutional amendments. The rule, offered by Rep. Paul Thissen (DFL-Minneapolis), was referred to the Rules Committee for further consideration by a vote of 74 to 60. DFL Rep. Ryan Winkler of Golden Valley criticized the vote as an indication that the Republican majority may prioritize delving into divisive social issues over fixing the budget deficit.

“We are facing a budget crisis of serious and historic proportions,” Thissen said on the House floor. “You stated that other more divisive issues should wait until we get that constitutional duty of balancing our budget done. It’s something that I think we’ve all agreed on publicly, and it’s an amendment that says and makes clear to the people of Minnesota what our priorities are.”

Rep. Paul Thissen. Photo: PaulThissen.com

He said, “[The amendment] says that no constitutional amendments will be considered by this body until we actually get our budget balanced and a balanced budget bill signed into law.”

But, Majority Leader Matt Dean moved to have the amendment sent to committee.

“We are focused on moving forward on process and we want to make sure we do this in a thoughtful and in a transparent manner,” he said adding that he wanted members to have a chance to examine the amendment. “However, we want to be able to have our members informed and we want have input from outside the building a well.”

But Thissen said the amendment, which is two sentences long, is self-explanatory.

“It is a straightforward amendment, easily understandable,” he said. “And something we can all agree on is that we should get our budget balanced before we deal with constitutional amendments and other issues.”

The amendment offered by Thissen read:

During an odd-numbered year, a House or Senate bill that proposes a constitutional amendment must not be considered in a committee or on the calendar for the day, the fiscal calendar, or any other floor calendar until bills necessary to provide a balanced general fund budget for the biennium beginning on July 1 of that year have been enacted into law. During an even-numbered year, if the most recent forecast of state revenues and expenditures predicts a deficit for the biennium ending on June 30 of the next odd-numbered year, a House or Senate bill that proposes a constitutional amendment must not be considered in a committee or on the calendar for the day, the fiscal calendar, or any other floor calendar until bills necessary to eliminate that projected deficit have been enacted into law.

Following the vote to send the bill to committee — mainly along partisan lines — Rep. Ryan Winkler released a statement criticizing the move.

“Minnesota is facing historic economic and fiscal challenges. State lawmakers have just a few months to solve a gaping $6.2 billion deficit while preserving essential public services,” said Winkler. “But Republicans in the legislature would rather focus their attention on a divisive social agenda that denies some Minnesotans the right to marriage, denies women the right to choose, and denies seniors the right to vote.”

Brad Brandon, the Hastings pastor who endorsed Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer from the pulpit, said Emmer will lose because he didn’t reach out to evangelicals on social issues. On his radio program, Brandon chided Emmer: “He refused to allow God into his campaign, that’s what it boils down to.” Emmer dodged questions about abortion and gay rights at every turn during the campaign, including on Brandon’s show.

Brandon noted that the 9,000-vote gap between Emmer and DFLer Mark Dayton would be too much for Emmer to close.

“Just get used to the fact that Dayton is going to be our governor,” Brandon said. “I don’t like having a schizophrenic for a governor, but you know, it is what it is.”

Brandon said he’d been “analyzing for six months” what Emmer was doing wrong in his campaign.

“I noticed that he was making some very serious errors. He failed to energize the evangelical vote; he basically underestimated, you and me, as evangelical Christians, the evangelical vote,” he told listeners.

“I can’t tell you how many times I had Tom Emmer sitting across the table from me trying to interview him on the radio and I’m asking him about life issues, I’m asking him about social issues like gay marriage,” he said. “I asked him the hard questions and he would not give me a straight answer when it comes to social issues and it was getting to be frustrating.”

Just weeks before the election, Emmer appeared on Brandon’s show. When Brandon asked him about his positions on gay marriage and abortion, Emmer continued to steer the question toward jobs and the economy. And in each debate where the issues came up, Emmer frustrated moderators by not addressing the questions directly.

Brandon said he approached Emmer off the air to urge him to reach out to evangelicals on social issues, but Emmer declined.

Though Brandon criticized Emmer, he said he wished Emmer was governor.

“I think he’s a great guy and would have made a fantastic governor for the state of Minnesota,” he said. “I endorsed him, I voted for him, but I was not energized to vote for him.”

He added, “I don’t mean to be extra critical, but he refused to allow God into his campaign, that’s what it boils down to.”

Religious right groups in Minnesota and around the country said that Tuesday’s landslide victories for Republicans were due to their efforts — and they might be right. Anti-abortion groups claim they ousted incumbents who were previously “pro-life” but voted for health care reform, which the groups inaccurately stated will fund abortions. And massive anti-gay marriage campaigns throughout Minnesota preceded losses by same-sex marriage supporters at the Legislature.

“Today, the Susan B. Anthony List announced that it successfully defeated 15 of its 20 targeted self-described ‘pro-life’ Democrats who voted for the pro-abortion health care bill as part of its “Votes Have Consequences” project,” the anti-abortion group said in a statement Wednesday. Rep. James Oberstar was one of those the group said it targeted.

“Last night, the SBA List accomplished its overall goal and delivered on our promise that votes have consequences,” the group’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said. “In these races, the abortion issue was a determining factor. We flexed the muscles of the pro-life movement.”

Concerned Women for America also saw Oberstar’s defeat as a victory for the religious right. Citing Oberstar, Concerned Women for America Director of Legislation and Public Policy Shari Rendall said, “Last night’s vote was crystal clear: Americans do not want their money to pay for abortions.”

Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, after endorsing Oberstar for years, threw its support behind Republican Chip Cravaack, also citing Oberstar’s vote for health care reform.

“Yesterday was a good day for the pro-life movement — nationwide and here in Minnesota,” an update on the MCCL website read. “The one change came in the 8th District, where pro-life (and MCCL Federal PAC-endorsed) Chip Cravaack ousted Rep. Jim Oberstar in a remarkable upset. Our state will now have five (out of eight) pro-life members of Congress.”

SBA List, Concerned Women for America and MCCL all attacked Oberstar for not being “pro-life” due to his vote for health care reform. They said that vote was a vote for federally-funded abortions, but many fact-checkers say that claim in false.

According to Factcheck.org:

The law says that those receiving subsidies to buy insurance through state-based exchanges must submit a separate payment to cover abortion services (if they choose a plan that covers abortions), and insurance providers must keep federal money separate from private payments to ensure the federal money does not go toward abortion coverage. President Obama also signed an executive order reaffirming the federal rules on only funding abortion in cases of rape, incest and danger to the mother’s life.

And the Pulitzer Prize-winning Politifact also rated claims that Obamacare pays for abortion as “false.”

In Minnesota, the Minnesota Family Council took credit for the GOP gains in the State Legislature.

“MFC would like to thank the tens of thousands of social conservatives who headed [sic] our calls, emails and mailings to vote their pro-life, pro-marriage values,” said Chuck Darrell, Director of Communications. The group, which opposes LGBT rights, said it made 500,000 calls and distributed 250,000 voters’ guides to 1,200 churches.

“This dramatic change in both houses stops efforts to legalize gay marriage dead in it’s [sic] tracks. Recently, backers of gay marriage have been boasting that Minnesota is on the ‘verge’ of legalizing gay marriage. Apparently not, as the people have responded by electing pro-life, pro-marriage majorities in both the house and the senate,” said Darrell on the group’s site.

MFC also teamed up with the National Organization for Marriage on a series of radio and television ads supporting Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. The two groups spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the ads, though exact numbers are unknown since NOM refuses to disclose its expenditures.

And to supplement the efforts of NOM and MFC, the Catholic Church sent out hundreds of thousands of DVDs to Minnesota Catholics urging them to vote against legislators who support gay marriage.

Now that Iowans have voted to oust three state Supreme Court justices, conservatives are beginning to wonder if they have the momentum to push to overturn the court’s 2009 ruling that legalized same-sex marriage.

It was marriage that inspired the campaign to oust the judges, and it was prominent national anti-gay organizations that bankrolled the effort. Led by Mississippi-based American Family Association, the effort was aided by groups such as Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council, Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, Georgia-based Faith & Freedom Coalition and New Jersey-based National Organization for Marriage.

The organizations spent more than $1 million to oust the judges, with the campaign culminating in a 20-city bus tour across Iowa urging voters to kick the judges off the bench. Local leaders of the effort said rejecting the judges would set the stage for the fight over gay marriage and gay rights in Iowa and across the country.

Bob Vander Plaats, a former Republican gubernatorial candidate acted as spokesman for the campaign, told Radio Iowa just before midnight Tuesday that “history’s being made.”

“Iowans who have a great level of common sense and a measured response, the more they learned about this issue, the more they understood about this issue, the more they were willing to vote no because they saw an activist court that was wanted to make law from the bench and they knew that wasn’t their role,” he said. “Their voice was never heard on the same-sex marriage issue.”

Vander Plaats said later that, “the rest of the country is going to hear our voice.”

Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Republican Party of Iowa, wrote on his blog Tuesday that the vote may be enough to “motivate complacent legislators to finally get on board with a marriage amendment, and maybe even go around Mike Gronstal to do so.”

Gronstal, the Democratic leader in the state Senate, has repeatedly vowed to never allow a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage to come up for a vote. But with Republicans in control of the Iowa House, and a much smaller Democratic advantage in the state Senate, marriage may become a big issue during the 2011 session. During the 2010 session, advocates for an amendment came just five votes shy of forcing a vote on marriage over Gronstal’s objections.

Carolyn Jenison, executive director of the LGBT-rights group One Iowa, said the “courageous justices who recognized the freedom to marry in Iowa fell victim to a perfect storm of electoral discontent and out-of-state special interest money.”

“In the months and weeks ahead we can expect renewed attempts to overturn the freedom to marry and write discrimination into the Iowa Constitution,” she said in a statement to supporters. “It will take a concerted and collective effort on the part of pro-equality Iowans to respond to these attacks and defend on our liberties. We hope you’ll join us.”

In a joint statement, Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and Associate Justices Michael Streit and David Baker thanked the Iowans who supported them for another term.

“Your support shows that many Iowans value fair and impartial courts,” the statement said. “We also want to acknowledge and thank all the Iowans, from across the political spectrum and from different walks of life, who worked tirelessly over the past few months to defend Iowa’s high-caliber court system against an unprecedented attack by out-of-state special interest groups.”

Despite the ouster of the judges, however, same-sex marriage will continue to be legal in Iowa, and outgoing Democratic Gov. Chet Culver has the authority to appoint the judges’ successors.

“While the full implications of these election results remain to be seen, one thing remains the same,” Jenison said. “The freedom to marry in Iowa remains intact.”

Jason Hancock is the editor of the Iowa Independent.

A television ad by the National Organization for Marriage and the Minnesota Family Council (MFC) in support of GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer was called “highly misleading, but it’s not completely false” by WCCO’s Reality Check with Pat Kessler on Tuesday. But the Minnesota Family Council shot back at Kessler on Wednesday calling him “misleading.”

Kessler took issue with the MFC’s assertion that DFLer Mark Dayton and Independence party candidate Tom Horner don’t want voters to vote on gay marriage.

“The ad accurately describes which candidates for governor support gay marriage. But it’s beside the point. The governor has no role,” he said. “When a constitutional amendment is approved by the legislature, it bypasses the governor and goes directly to voters.”

Kessler calls the ad misleading for that reason. Kessler also notes that MFC inappropriately invokes the image of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to support its case, a fact that MFC does not dispute.

But MFC said on Wednesday that Kessler is misleading.

“In fact, the governor play a huge ‘role’ as he/she has the power to veto any bill that would legalize same-sex marriage – and there are five bills to legalize same-sex marriage waiting to be passed in the 2011 session,” the group says.

Here’s MFC’s “fact-check” of Kessler’s fact-check.

But the ad in question doesn’t mention legislative action on same-sex marriage. It only discusses allowing voters to vote on gay marriage and uses the example of Massachusetts which allowed gay marriage through the courts not by action or inaction by then-Gov. Mitt Romney or the Massachusetts Legislature. That Dayton and Horner support gay marriage in general doesn’t have a bearing on whether Minnesotans will vote on the issue. It would appear that Kessler was correct in calling the ad misleading.

Here’s the ad:

In a video accompanying Minnesota bishops’ anti-gay marriage campaign, Archbishop John Neinstedt says that “the time has come for the voters to be presented directly with an amendment to our state constitution.” The bishop’s video will be distributed to more than a million Minnesota Catholics in the coming weeks along with a DVD produced by the Knights of Columbus. Just in time for the November elections, the DVD distribution coincides with a similar ad campaign paid for by the National Organization for Marriage and the Minnesota Family Council.

“So called same-sex marriage would certainly be a declaration by the government that we have abandoned the idea that children need a mom and a dad,” said Neinstedt. “A question as important as the future of this great social institution should not be decided by a ruling elite. ”

Here are Neinstedt’s full remarks: