Cleta Mitchell, a partner in Foley and Lardner, registered as a lobbyist on Oct. 26 to represent NOM. The HRC said it was downgrading Foley and Mitchell from 100 percent to 60 percent on its corporate equality index.

The Minnesota Independent first reported about Mitchell registering as a lobbyist at the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board last week. Mitchell’s expertise is in assisting Tea Party candidates and organizations with campaign finance laws. She’s helps candidates identify loopholes in the campaign finance system. The National Organization for Marriage has been urging the campaign finance board to relax disclosure laws so that it will not have to disclose its donors.

On Tuesday, HRC sent a letter to Jay Rothman, CEO of Foley and Lardner, alerting the firm that it was losing its 100 percent rating which it earned in 2010 and was being downgraded to 60 percent due to Mitchell’s involvement with NOM and the anti-gay marriage amendment in Minnesota.

“In a time when major corporations, including the nation’s top law firms, are taking unprecedented strides in support of LGBT equality with regards to their workplace practices and business activities, your firm has regrettably taken a notable step backwards,” the letter said. “In the 2010 [Corporate Equality Index], Foley & Lardner achieved a perfect 100 score. In the 2012 CEI to be released next month, your firm will drop further to a 60, one of the lowest scores earned by an Am Law firm in the upcoming report.”

Foley and Lardner had also worked for an anti-gay marriage group in Washington, D.C., in 2009, causing HRC to temporarily drop its rating.

We fully recognize that the legal profession has the duty to represent unpopular clients and take on controversial cases,” HRC wrote of the firm’s 2009 work. “Ms. Mitchell is a registered lobbyist on behalf of NOM in Minnesota, which goes well beyond any professional or ethical obligations of legal representation. Moreover, the firm has established a clear pattern of knowingly taking on anti-LGBT organizations as clients, even after we and others in the community expressed concerns.”

JoeSolmonese_letter_FoleyAndLardner_Nov2011

The Minnesota Catholic Conference, the policy wing of Minnesota’s Catholic bishops, and the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) have registered political action funds (PACs) with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board. The two funds join the Minnesota Family Council Marriage Protection Fund in hopes of raising money to convince voters to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

The PACs will allow the groups to raise money for political activity surrounding the 2012 ballot initiative. NOM’s PAC is registered in Washington, D.C., under the name of the group’s president Brian Brown. The Minnesota Catholic Conference was registered by that group’s head, Jason Adkins.

In addition to NOM, MCC and MFC, the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign has registered a fund to defeat the amendment.

Other groups have registered ballot initiative campaigns, including It’s Personal to Me Campaign, a north Minneapolis group; Minnesota For Marriage, a coalition of MCC, MFC and NOM; Minnesotans United for All Families, the main coalition in opposition to the amendment; OutFront Minnesota Marriage Equality, the state’s largest LGBT advocacy organization; and Republicans Against the Minnesota Marriage Amendment.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT advocacy group, registered a political action committee (PAC) with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board on Monday with the purpose of defeating a ballot measure that would place a ban on same-sex marriage in the Minnesota Constitution. The PAC joins three others working to defeat the amendment. Currently, only one ballot campaign is working to pass the amendment.

HRC’s campaign, the Minnesota Family Freedom PAC, is the first national group to take an interest in defeating the amendment in Minnesota. Active on the opposite side is Minnesota for Marriage, a campaign comprised of the Minnesota Family Council and the Minnesota Catholic Conference, as well as the National Organization for Marriage. NOM has been active in the state since 2010 when it ran ads in support of Republicans.

NOM ran the ads in concert with the Minnesota Family Council as opposed to the Minnesota for Marriage ballot campaign, a move that sparked a campaign finance complaint earlier this year. That complaint is still pending.

Three other groups working to defeat the amendment registered after the Minnesota Legislature passed the amendment onto the ballot. Minnesotans United for All Families is being coordinated by OutFront Minnesota and Project 515, two groups that support relationship rights for LGBT families.

In addition, a group of Republicans have registered Republicans Against the Minnesota Marriage Amendment.

And another group has registered the It’s Personal to Me Campaign, which aims to put a personal face on the marriage equality battle.

On its website, the group explains its motivation:

In November 2012, Minnesotan’s will be asked whether to ban same-sex marriage by defining marriage between one man and one woman. When asked about this issue Minnesota Family Council President Tom Prichard said: “[O]ur goal is to not make it personal.” It’s Personal to Me, challenges this idea by putting a face on the people who will be affected by this harmful ballot measure that is anti-family and anti-marriage and will sew anger and division across the state.

Sen. Scott Dibble told Minnesota Public Radio that 100,000 emails sent to legislators by gay marriage supporters were clogging the servers and that the Senate IT department was set to delete them Monday morning. The emails, sent through the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBT rights group, chided Republicans and a handful of DFLers who voted Saturday night to put a constitutional ban on gay marriage on the ballot in 2012. Secretary of the Senate Cal Ludeman said the emails were being help in a spam filter and that his office was workign to get them back into the system.

“Hundreds of thousands of emails have come in the aftermath, so many so that the Republican caucus is deleting them before their members even get to see them,” Dibble told MPR.

Sen. Warren Limmer, the chief author of the anti-gay marriage amendment, said, “Not true. Not true. We aren’t wiping off comments of our constituents. That’s just simply not true.”

Sen. Dibble answered back, “That absolutely is true, and that’s exactly what the secretary of the Senate has told us.”

Secretary of the Senate Cal Ludeman tells the Minnesota Independent that the sheer volume of email coming into the system had caused it to crash on Sunday. By early Monday morning 230,000 emails had flooded in, he said, adding that he ordered the IT department to send a large number to a spam filter.

He said that those emails coming in would not be deleted and that they were working to “filter them back in.”

He wasn’t aware which emails were coming in or which ones needed to be sent to a spam filter.

“We are managing the traffic and they’ll be flowed back into the system,” he said.

Already the flood of emails has rankled some legislators. Rep. Tony Cornish, R-Good Thunder, responded to the emails over the weekend in a manner some thought rude.

Here’s the audio of the exchange between Dibble and Limmer:

A vote by Rep. Tony Cornish to put a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage on the 2012 ballot has brought a flurry of emails into the Good Thunder Republican’s inbox expressing disappointment. The responses he’s been sending back — “Give it a rest!!!!!!!!!” and “try writing a sane letter,” among others — have only served to fan the flames.

A Minnesotan named Stephanie, who sent a form email through the Human Rights Campaign website, got a response from Cornish that she described as “rude.”

Other people who have emailed Cornish have also received responses.

“Cool off & try writing a sane letter,” went one response. “Try writing your own letter without forwarding someone else’s anger and resentment. Get an idea of your own,” Cornish wrote in another email.

Update: A reader shares correspondence with Cornish, which included the explanation for the “give it a rest” line:

From the start, right after my vote, I received e mails calling me a “bigot” and much much worse, describing in detail horrific things that I should do to my own body, and people talking about my “obituary.” It wore on me, so about the 300th letter I got like that, I replied, “Give it a rest!”

It’s just kind of disturbing I guess, when my district asked me overwhelmingly to put this on the ballot, that I should get such letters.

Thanks for writing,

Cornish

Another reader sends this email, received from Cornish Sunday and sent in response to an email generated by the Human Rights Campaign:

Hey, try writing a letter on your own and not copy someone else’s. That way you won’t be trapped into writing ridiculous ranting letters.

Have a great day.

Cornish

Both emails come from Cornish’s official House email address.

Sen. Al Franken called the words of Minnesota Family Council president Tom Prichard “unbelievable” in an interview with the Advocate on Tuesday. Prichard wrote last week that “homosexual activists” share in the blame when LGBT students commit suicide because “they’ve embraced an unhealthy sexual identity and lifestyle.”

To that quote Franken said, “After all the tragedy that Anoka-Hennepin school district students have endured this year, I find unbelievable that anyone would suggest that bullying is not a problem.”

Also on Tuesday Franken wrote in an article posted at the Huffington Post that the string of suicides by LGBT students around the country this year is “inexcusable.” He said he’s working with groups like the Human Rights Campaign and the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network to pass the Student Non-Discrimination Act, which prohibits schools from ignoring harassment and bullying based on actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

“It is inexcusable that toxic school environments have been contributing to the deaths of innocent children,” he wrote. “We must act now to prevent these tragedies.”

Franken introduced the bill this spring. A companion to the bill has been submitted in the House and is sponsored by Reps. Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum and James Oberstar.

“Some view this epidemic of suicides as a wake-up call and are looking for ways to prevent future tragedies,” Franken wrote. “We firmly believe that if schools work to create positive cultures and if Congress passes the Student Non-Discrimination Act, those steps will be a huge stride forward in protecting LGBT students from the bullying and harassment that is all too common in schools today.”

At least three LGBT students have taken their own life in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, the state’s largest school district, and concerned parents and teachers have begun to pressure the school to make changes. The district has seen at least six student suicides within the past year, with the most recent coming Sunday night, according to a Fox 9 report.

At a press conference last week in the district, Franken sent a statement saying, “In what should be an unthinkable scenario, some of these children and young people end their own life.” He added, “Anoka-Hennepin has witnessed too many tragedies this year. We need to do more to protect our children from bullying. It’s time we extend civil rights to LGBT students.”

In the new 2011 Corporate Equality Index (CEI) released by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), three Minnesota corporations’ ratings were decreased due to political activity. Target, Best Buy and 3M all were given an 85-point rating after each received a 15-point reduction for their donations to independent expenditure group MN Forward.

Those donations were protested by LGBT-rights groups as Emmer opposes civil rights measures and has ties to a controversial Christian rock band. In last year’s index, each of those company received a perfect score. The HRC had already announced that Target and Best Buy would be dropped from the organization’s buying guide.

In judging U.S. businesses, the CEI measures a number of factors such as non-discrimination policies, providing partner benefits to same-sex couples and diversity training. They also include a category titled “responsible citizenship,” worth 15 points, that examines whether corporations have “a large-scale official or public anti-LGBT blemish on their recent records.” Best Buy, Target and 3M were granted perfect scores in all categories except the responsible citizenship measure, where all three lost the full 15 points.

In July, Target and Best Buy contributed $150,000 and $100,000 respectively to MN Forward, an independent group that has spent almost all of their funds running advertisements supporting Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer or attacking Mark Dayton, the Democrat in the race. 3M joined the list of MN Forward donors in September, contributing $100,000 to the organization. Progressive organizations had been largely mute on that latest donation until the new edition of the CEI.

Explaining the downgrade in the three companies’ ratings, the HRC’s report says:

This summer, it came to light that Target Corp., Best Buy Co. Inc. and 3m Co. – all of which had outstanding workplace policies and 100 percent scores on the CEI – had donated substantial sums to an independent expenditure committee supporting an anti-LGBT gubernatorial candidate. HRC confronted the companies about their donations, which could help block marriage equality in Minnesota if this candidate is elected. In doing so, HRC highlighted the dangers of a post-Citizens United world and channeled the LGBT community’s anger toward what HRC hoped would be a reasonable solution. As of this writing, the companies have chosen to take no corrective action and are being penalized under the existing CEI criteria not for the donation itself, but for failing to respond to significant community concerns.

The downgrade for Target, Best Buy and 3M was outside the general trend for U.S. companies in the CEI. The report granted a perfect rating to 337 businesses, an increase from the 2010 CEI, which gave a 100 percent rating to 305 companies.

Patrick Caldwell is the American Independent’s Minnesota correspondent.

The issue of suicides among LGBT students drew parents, students and community members to the Anoka-Hennepin School District headquarters Monday where they pressed the school board to change policies they say contribute to a culture of bullying. But anti-LGBT forces were on hand as well, telling the board that changing the policies would undermine parental authority.

A press conference was organized by the Gay Equity Team (GET), a group of parents, students and teachers that formed in 2009 following a Minnesota Department of Human Rights report that showed two teachers conspired to harass a student because they thought he was gay.

GET organized the event in response to seven suicides in the district.

“Four of those students faced harassment and bullying based on their perceived GLBT orientation,” said GET spokeswoman Robin Mavis.

Representatives from national groups including the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network and the Human Rights Campaign spoke about the implications of anti-LGBT bullying, and Sen. Al Franken sent a statement to the press conference.

“In what should be an unthinkable scenario, some of these children and young people end their own life,” Franken said. “Anoka-Hennepin has witnessed too many tragedies this year. We need to do more to protect our children from bullying. It’s time we extend civil rights to LGBT students.”

Tammy Aaberg, whose son Justin took his own life in July, said bullying contributed to his death.

“I was aware of one incident, but I had no idea how horrible it was and I’m learning that this harassment happened in the company of teachers,” she said Monday. “I want Justin’s legacy to be that he’s the last gay child to take his life because of bullying. To ensure that what happened to my son doesn’t happen to other students in Anoka-Hennepin and elsewhere, is why I’m here today.”

Aaberg said that the sexual orientation neutrality policy adopted by the school board must be changed. The policy prohibits teachers from talking about sexual orientation and says that those issues should be relegated to parents, churches and community groups.

Justin Aaberg in a YouTube video he created

The school also has a separate policy that prohibits bullying and specifically mentions race, sex, disability and religion. That it excludes sexual orientation has been another concern of GET.

School district spokeswoman Mary Olson said the neutrality policy simply says “teachers should not provide their own opinion on GLBT issues” and that “the neutral policy does not extend to hate speech.”

“The neutrality policy is not intended to prohibit teachers from correcting students for using harassing or homophobic language,” she said.

The school district has been adamant that they have a zero-tolerance policy on bullying and that they’ve told teachers they must intervene on behalf of all students who are being harassed.

Olson also said that they’re working with students as well. “We have told students who are bullied to let some adult know. It’s difficult to address it if we don’t know,” she said.

But when asked whether the neutrality policy was actually neutral, the school acknowledged it was not.

The Minnesota Independent asked whether the policy also prevented teachers from discussing heterosexuality — for example, in the context of discussions about marriage or sex education. “That’s correct,” Olson said. “It only pertains to discussions of GLBT issues.”

And that has been the sticking point for GET, whose members say that the policy is discriminatory and is the reason some teachers may look the other way when anti-gay bullying is occurring.

“The district has been clear that its harassment and curriculum policies are separate issues, and on this we fundamentally disagree,” GET member Michael McGee told the school board during the open comment portion of the meeting Monday evening.

“There can be no meaningful, proactive training and education regarding how to respond to and prevent the bullying and harassment of GLBT members of the Anoka-Hennepin community while the sexual orientation curriculum policy remains in effect. They are inextricably connected.”

He said it “continues to perpetuate an environment that is hostile for GLBT students” and “allows representations of heterosexuality but singles out homosexuality as unworthy of acknowledgment and discussion.”

Justin Anderson, a recent graduate of the district, said that that lack of discussion made him feel isolated and alone. “Hearing people speak negatively about me every day with no intervention tore away at my self-esteem,” he told the board. “I never heard any one teacher or student speak out against it, and I became depressed.”

He said there were times he felt like taking his own life. “I would think, ‘Tonight’s the night I’m going to do it.’”

Dale Schuster, a former student of the district, relayed some of the same comments.

“There is no way to be neutral on this issue. Either we support the GLBT students as we do their straight peers or we don’t,” he said.

It’s impossible to explain why hateful rhetoric is wrong with a neutrality policy in place, he said. “How do you stop the anti-gay rhetoric without explaining why it’s wrong in the first place?”

He added, “The time to remain neutral while our GLBT students are taking their own lives needs to end.”

But not everyone at the school board meeting thought the neutrality policy was a bad thing. Brian Lundquist of Ramsey said he was a memeber of the Parents Action League, a group that recently formed in the district.

The group had advocated for ex-gay therapy and expressed concern for “the health risks to students who are affirmed and labeled as ‘gay’ and who may participate in homosexual acts” and “the pro-gay activist teachers who fail to abide by district policies and use their classroom to promote their personal agendas.”

Parents Action League shut down their website recently, citing “bullying” by the the LGBT community.

Lundquist told the board that the group is made up of parents “who want to ensure that our schools remain focused on core academics in the classroom.”

He said that the neutrality policy is important and spoke out against attempts to “undermine the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of our own children.”

He added that “respectfully disagreeing with a point of view or behavior is not bullying.”

“On behalf of the Parents Action League,” Lundquist urged, “we just wanted to let you know we support you as school board members and ask that you keep the aforementioned policies.”

Graphic for HRC's campaign

The Human Rights Campaign pledged Friday to donate $150,000 to political causes in Minnesota to offset a donation by retail giant Target to MN Forward, a political group backing GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. HRC will be donating $100,000 to WIN Minnesota, $30,000 to candidates (including Emmer’s DFL opponent Mark Dayton) and $20,000 to OutFront Minnesota. The group also said it will be ramping up its political efforts in the state because Minnesota could be the next state to allow gay marriage.

Target took considerable heat from LGBT advocates for its donation to MN Forward and, by extension, Emmer, who activists say is anti-gay. HRC asked Target to also donate to pro-LGBT causes to balance the donation but Target refused.

HRC says that its new political donations in Minnesota are as much about Target as they are about winning gay marriage in the state.

“We’ve understood long before the Target situation that Minnesota was poised, as is New York, to be the next state to win marriage equality,” HRC president Joe Solmonese told the Associated Press.

Image from a Facebook group urging a Target boycott

Target announced Wednesday that its second-quarter profits of $679 million represent a 14 percent increase compared to the same period last year. The report suggests to some that the chain hasn’t yet been dinged too badly by the nationwide calls for boycotts over its financial support for a conservative PAC backing antigay gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer.  (News of Target’s gift to MN Forward didn’t break until late July, in the third quarter, although Target expects slight growth over that period too.) Another good sign for Target: The Los Angeles Times editorialized this morning that MoveOn.org’s boycott effort is “distasteful” and “counterproductive.”

The paper’s editorial board writes:

For MoveOn, the fight is at least as much about corporate money as it is about gay rights. The Target contribution is a high-profile result of an overreaching January decision by the Supreme Court that opens the door for more corporate donations to political campaigns. But by pointing out Target’s involvement in Emmer’s campaign and obtaining an apology, MoveOn and Human Rights Campaign had already won; their calls for a boycott and attempt to strong-arm money from the company are deeply counterproductive.

The boycott is a tried-and-true tool of nonviolent resistance, used to powerful effect during the civil rights era. But it is cheapened and ultimately rendered ineffective when it becomes a hair-trigger response by activists irked by minor political transgressions. Target’s contribution to MN Forward was at worst a small error of judgment, and should matter far less than the company’s ongoing and long-term commitment to workplace equal rights and its sponsorship of pro-gay events. Moreover, the attempt to wrangle an in-kind contribution from Target is reminiscent of a tactic that appalled gay rights advocates when it was used against them during the campaign for Proposition 8, California’s 2008 initiative banning same-sex marriage. Proposition 8 supporters sent letters to big contributors for the opposite side, threatening to expose them unless they sent an equal donation to their campaign. It was a distasteful move then, and now.

It’s worth noting that many of the LGBT advocacy groups involved in the backlash against Target’s $150,000 donation to MN Forward acknowledge Target’s leading role in workplace fairness issues for LGBT people. In its open letter to Target (pdf), which ran as a full page ad in the Star Tribune, the national Human Rights Campaign called Target (and Twin Cities-based Best Buy, which also gave to MN Forward but has received less heat for it) are “shining examples of corporations that respected the equality and dignity of every American.” Both companies consistently got perfect scores on the HRC Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index.

Likewise, OutFront Minnesota prefaced its disappointment with Target for its roundabout support of a candidate with a long record of opposition to rights for LGBT familes by stating, “Target Corporation has long been a strong ally of Minnesota’s GLBT community and OutFront Minnesota and many other GLBT organizations have looked to Target as a model of the corporate support for diversity.”