“We feel this decision is more respectful for all students,” Anoka-Hennepin spokesman Brett Johnson told KSTP.

Steve Shaw of KSTP said, “The district says that it arrived at its decision to have the students enter the Snow Days coronation separately because there are also students that don’t agree with two girls walking in together.”

Despite that, the report notes that the student body voted the two girls in as a couple.

Staff received this email from the district on Thursday evening:

There have been some rumors about our upcoming Snow Days Pep Fest on Monday. Let me provide you with accurate information. Our goal is to make the event as positive for everyone involved – our students, members of Snow Days royalty, our staff and parents. There is some concern that we will not let members of royalty walk as couples during the coronation ceremony. Please remember that students were nominated as individuals, not as couples – therefore we will present them to you and honor them as individuals during the Pep Fest. This has been a year with some changes to CPHS traditions, so as we reviewed Snow Days, we decided this was a better plan that honors and respects every student.

It’s not the first time that the school has been the under the gun on LGBT issues. Several years ago, Barb Anderson of the Minnesota Family Council urged the district to remove posters that offered counseling to LGBT students who faced harassment in the schools.

“I briefly expressed my reasons as to why this poster was a propaganda piece and that without parental knowledge or consent, students calling this number could be indoctrinated into the homosexual lifestyle, referred to homosexual support groups, used for political purposes or put at risk for being affirmed in unhealthy and dangerous behaviors,” Anderson wrote. “My concerns did not fall on deaf ears.”

The school complied with the Minnesota Family Council’s request. The poster that the group targeted was from the 130-year old Family Partnership, a Minneapolis nonprofit that helps “the communities most vulnerable families.”

Last month, Anderson said that LGBT advocates were responsible for LGBT students being bullied.

The district has seen considerable controversy over its “neutrality policy,” which bars discussions of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender issues in the classroom, and more than n9ine suicides in the last 18 months, some of which LGBT advocates say involved anti-LGBT bullying.

Update:

Court action sought over Snow Days coronation barring lesbian couple

Lawsuit filed against Anoka-Hennepin School District on behalf of lesbian couple

With 18 days left until the election, Democrat Mark Dayton appears to hold a slight edge, according to the latest poll on the Minnesota gubernatorial race. In a new KSTP/SurveryUSA poll, Dayton leads Republican Tom Emmer 42-37 percent, with Independence Party candidate Tom Horner trailing far behind the two major-party candidates with only 14 percent support. The survey of 712 likely voters was conducted Oct. 11–13 and has a +/- 3.7 percent margin of error.

Dayton gained a slight uptick in support from the last KSTP/SurveyUSA poll conducted a month ago. In that poll Dayton only led Emmer by two percent. Emmer’s support remained fairly consistent between the two polls, and Dayton’s minor surge appears to come at the expense of Horner. The Independence candidate dropped four points from his 18 percent show of support a month ago.

One of the main challenges for third-party candidates is convincing voters that they have a viable chance of being elected. As Horner’s numbers drop approaching election day, his level of support could continue to decrease at an increased pace if voters begin to perceive him as a spoiler rather than a winning candidate. Based on this latest poll, that could play to Dayton’s favor. Though Horner is a former Republican, he represented the more moderate, Arne Carlson-side of the party while Tom Emmer has placed himself on the side of the far-right. However, with his plan to institute significantly higher tax rates, Dayton can hardly be called a traditional moderate either.

Polls of the gubernatorial race have shown a variety of results over the past few months, but the trend recently has been toward a tied race, essentially. Rasmussen’s polling has been within the margin of error, switching between leads for Dayton and Emmer. But outside analysts have leaned toward a slight edge for Dayton.

TPM’s PollTracker gives Dayton a four-percent-average lead and FiveThirtyEight gives the Democrat a 76-percent chance of winning the governor’s office.

The ad, which documents its research at the site missedvotes.com, states that Emmer missed 20 percent of votes, or “142 missed votes in 2010 alone. Votes on education, veterans’ affairs, and jobs.”

“The Alliance for a Better Minnesota gets its numbers right,” reports MPR’s Poligraph, later concluding that “most of those votes were indeed on significant issues facing the state, including education funding, taxes and the environment.”

But it offers this context:

This year’s session lasted a little over 14 weeks, and Emmer missed votes on 15 of those days. So, that’s roughly equivalent to one day for every week the legislature met. However, he was present for some votes on eight of those days. Furthermore, Emmer missed most of those votes on a few days clustered at the end of the session; he did not take one day off every week for the entire session as the ad implies. Emmer’s campaign manager Cullen Sheehan didn’t say where he was on those days, only that he takes his job “very seriously.”

KSTP’s Tom Hauser’s fact-check found the ad to be “attention grabbing and for the most part accurate. However, it’s also misleading.”

It’s true, says Hauser, that Emmer went from missing 4 percent of votes in 2009 to 23 percent of votes this year. But viewers should note, he adds, that other gubernatorial contenders, including Margaret Anderson Kelliher and Rep. Paul Thissen, missed a higher percentage of votes compare to the previous year. (Kelliher went from 4 percent in 2009 to 11 percent this year; Thissen went from 5 to 13 percent — both still well below Emmer’s House-leading missed-vote rate.)

Hauser also takes issue with the ad’s narrator, who asks, “What would happen if you missed one out of every five days of work for a year?”

That’s misleading, because it incorrectly equates one vote for one day of work; the Minnesota Legislature sometimes has multiple votes on a given day.

Over six years as a U.S. Senator, Hauser says in closing, Mark Dayton missed 3 percent of votes.

KSTP is owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, which donated $100,000 to MN Forward, the conservative PAC that has produced ads supporting Emmer (Hauser gave that ad a B+ grade).

A “GOP Newsline” email sent Wednesday carried the subject line “Avoid the DFL Donut Booth.” The reason, as the email puts it: “This mini-donut stand does not inform patrons that their money is going towards the DFL party, so be careful.” Attached to the email was a movie file of a KSTP report about how the stand is run by a DFL political action committee, a fact that wasn’t apparent to mini-donut afficionados. The Ramsey County group that runs the booth gave $40,000 to support DFL candidates in 2007 and $45,000 in 2006, the station reported. According to John Treadwell, treasurer of the PAC, several other Fair booths are likewise run by organizations whose names don’t appear on signage, although to his knowledge Grandstand is the only political one.

The KSTP report is a year old — as the date on the GOP’s video, as well as the YouTube video below show — but the 2009 State Fair map shows Grandstand Donuts will again be selling from their location on the southwest end of the plaza outside the Grandstand.

KSTP’s video:

The entire GOP email, sent by party chair Tony Sutton and deputy chair Michael Brodkorb:

Defunct paper sued:

Hoppin replaces Stassen-Berger: With Pioneer Press political reporter Rachel Stassen-Berger heading over to the Star Tribune, the St. Paul paper announces that her replacement will be reporter Jason Hoppin. A good move, but as editor Thom Fladung noted in his memo, Hoppin’s old beat — covering Minnesota’s capitol city – won’t be refilled.

Bridge shuttered: The Bridge, a community newspaper covering Mississippi River neighborhoods in the core of Minneapolis, stopped publishing its print edition a month ago, and now its website — rebranded as Bridgeland News — seems to be following suit. In a July 13 editors note, Dan Nordley wrote that, despite getting 1,000 email subscribers, the publication fell short in its fundraising efforts to switch to online-only newsgathering. The site — last updated on Aug. 6 — will get occasional new content, but, he writes, “the site will be like the Stone Arch Bridge—more of a nostalgic place than a structure that’s still used for commercial traffic.”

Health care debate goes online: Local social media types, fed up with mayhem wrought at public forums on health care by anti-Obama activists, are hoping for a calmer discussion of the issues online. Blogger and online media consultant Paul Saarinen has started a video conversation on “What bothers you about the health care debate?” Video commenters so far include Mediation blogger Taylor Carik and Matt Thompson, online journalist and former deputy web editor at the Star Tribune. All are welcome to participate.

Hubbard sues Ramsey County: In June, Hubbard Broadcasting — owner of KSTP, KAAL and others — filed a data practices request to see all uncounted ballots in the protracted Norm Coleman/Al Franken Senate contest. Now, after Coleman conceded defeat and with Al Franken serving his fifth week as Minnesota’s second senator, the company has filed suit against Ramsey County to get their hands on unopened absentee ballots. This week they did the same in St. Louis County.

(Wikimedia commons)

A SurveyUSA/KSTP poll released this week shows a high level of support in Minnesota for the recognition of same-sex couples. Sixty-four percent of respondents said the state should offer same-sex marriage or civil unions. Only 34 percent said same-sex couples should have no legal relationship rights.

Specifically, 29 percent favored same-sex marriage and 35 percent supported civil unions. Democrats were more likely to support same-sex marriage (45 percent) while independents favored civil unions (42 percent). Republicans favored no rights (57 percent).

In addition, Minnesotans said they oppose a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, with only 44 percent supporting it and 52 percent in opposition.

Bills that would legalize same-sex marriage as well as civil unions were offered at the Minnesota Capitol this session, but died in committee.

The survey of 500 residents also gauged support for a $1 billion tax bill that was passed by the DFL-controlled legislature last week, but vetoed by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty.  Roughly half (48 percent) of respondents expressed support for an override of the Governor’s veto, while 44 percent opposed an override.

In SurveyUSA’s most recent poll looking at Pawlenty’s popularity, 46 percent expressed approval of the job he is doing, while 50 percent indicated disapproval.

• Ex-KSTP-er seeks GOP chair:

• Minnesota’s best political blogs: The Fix, Chris Cillizza’s Washington Post blog, published its annual best-state-based political blogs list, and Minnesota gets some heavy representation: Eight sites — more than any other state — made the cut, including The UpTake, Centrisity, Minnesota Democrats Exposed and True North. (While MnIndy and MinnPost got several nominations, I’m guessing we’ve both transcended the “blog” category?)

• Aaron Landry tweets a milestone: According to Compete.com, a site that tracks web traffic, MinnPost has surpassed City Pages in monthly unique traffic. (Caveat: In following MnIndy’s traffic on Compete, it seems the site accurately represents traffic trends, but underestimates traffic numbers.)

• Roger Ebert v. Squeaky O’Reilly: Bill O’Reilly’s “Hall of Shame” is out, and on the list of “Media Outlets that Traffic in Defamation” are the New Yorker, the St. Petersburg Times and the Chicago Sun-Times, among others. In a letter to O’Reilly yesterday, film critic Roger Ebert posits that the Fox News talker’s ire has to do with the Sun-Times cutting Billo’s column, an act that drew far fewer complaints than when the paper stopped running Ernie Bushmiller’s comic strip about Nancy and Sluggo, according to Ebert’s editor. Ebert, who prefers conservative writer Charles Krauthammer to O’Reilly’s “knee-jerk frothings,” ends with a tale:

Bill, I am concerned that you have been losing touch with reality recently. Did you really say you are more powerful than any politician?

That reminds me of the famous story about Squeaky the Chicago Mouse. It seems that Squeaky was floating on his back along the Chicago River one day. Approaching the Michigan Avenue lift bridge, he called out: Raise the bridge! I have an erection!

The poll of 500 respondents, conducted Wednesday, found 49 percent wanted a combination of tax increases and budget cuts, while only 41 percent wanted just budget cuts and 4 percent only tax increases. Interestingly, 48 percent of Republicans approved of the combined strategy.

A majority, 53 percent, said that the wealthy should shoulder the burden, and only 12 percent thought there should be lower taxes on the wealthy.

Poll respondents overwhelmingly rejected a sales tax on food and clothing (81 percent) and also rejected public funding for a Vikings stadium (75 percent).