The head of a state pro-life group said last week that “Republican leaders lost sight of what is truly at stake—the lives of innocent human beings.”
State Rep. Mary Franson, R-Alexandria, said she’s worried the unionization of child-care workers would mean children would engage in craft projects using macaroni noodles to spell out “tax the rich.”
The group also said that they spent a lot of money in the 2011 legislative session and appealed for donations.
Controversial preacher Bradlee Dean continues to claim that House Speaker Kurt Zellers asked to be on Dean’s show, Sons of Liberty, immediately preceding Dean’s infamous prayer at the opening of a Minnesota House session, according to an interview Dean did with City Pages reporter Andy Mannix. Zellers has denied that he ever asked to be on the show. Dean also said that Rep. Ernie Leidiger, R-Mayer, who invited Dean to give the prayer but later stated he didn’t know much about Dean, was “behind” Dean’s ministry before he was against it.
Bradlee Dean, an anti-gay preacher, told a radio show last week that House Speaker Kurt Zellers had asked to be on his radio show the week before Dean gave a controversial prayer before the Minnesota House. But according to a spokesperson for Zellers’ office, Dean was not telling the truth. Dean’s prayer, which took a swing at President Obama, was nearly universally condemned by legislators on both sides of the aisle.
Controversial preacher Bradlee Dean says that House Speaker Kurt Zellers asked to appear on Dean’s radio show, the Sons of Liberty, the week before Dean gave a controversial prayer before the Minnesota House. Dean’s claim stands in stark contrast to Zeller’s words condemning Dean, as well as House leadership’s insistence that they weren’t familiar with Dean. Dean made his statement as part of a media blitz of more than two dozen radio stations where he defended his prayer and blamed “homosexual activists” for the controversy which continues to simmer. Zellers says Dean’s claim is not true.
The decision to allow anti-gay preacher Bradlee Dean to give the opening prayer before the Minnesota House on Friday sent shockwaves through the Legislature, and the reverberations from that decision continued over the weekend. Democrats filed a complaint on Sunday after House Speaker Kurt Zellers moved to strike Dean’s name from the official record, while Dean, after skipping his own press conference on the matter, took to the airwaves to slam Zellers for not defending him.
A prayer at Friday’s session of the Minnesota House given by anti-gay preacher Bradlee Dean erupted a firestorm of criticism among DFL legislators and some in the GOP. Dean, whose fiery brand of anti-LGBT preaching riled opponents of GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer last fall, led the House in prayer, asserting that President Obama was not a Christian. Republican leadership, sensing controversy, asked the official House chaplain to conduct an unusual second prayer. Minnesota’s LGBT legislators said Dean’s anti-gay preaching “reveals the underlying hateful nature of the anti-gay constitutional amendment movement.”
Republican House Speaker Kurt Zellers told members of the Minnesota House that he would never allow Bradlee Dean or anyone like him to give a prayer before the chamber again so long as he is speaker. Dean’s prayer insinuated that President Obama was not a Christian and his past statements about incarcerating gays and lesbians sparked a firestorm of criticism on both sides of the aisle.
Republicans in the Minnesota House introduced three bills on Thursday that would put a ban on same-sex marriage into the Minnesota Constitution. The bill is a companion to the bills offered in the Minnesota Senate on Tuesday. Rep. Steve Gottwalt, R-St. Cloud, liked the idea so much, he’s offered two additional identical bills of his own.
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