Minnesota has the third lowest number of residents lacking health insurance coverage, according to a survey by Gallup. The state ranks below Massachusetts and Vermont, two New England states that have instituted universal health care insurance programs. According to the survey, 9.4 percent of Minnesotans lack health insurance.

Massachusetts topped the list of states with the lowest number of uninsured at 5.3 percent. In 2006, the state instituted a mandate requiring residents to carry health insurance. Vermont has the second lowest uninsured rate at 9.2 percent. Vermont recently enacted the nation’s first single-payer health care system.

Rounding out the top 10 were Connecticut, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Maryland, New Jersey and Delaware.

Despite the strong showing in the state-based rankings, Minnesota’s rate of uninsured has climbed over the last few years from 8.7 percent in 2009.

Minnesota also placed third in 2010 and 2009, according to Gallup. The Midwest and Northeast have historically had low uninsured rates.

The bottom ten were all southern states, except for California and Alaska. Texas had the highest percent of uninsured with 27.4 percent followed by Mississippi, Alaska, Florida, Oklahoma, California, Louisiana, Arkansas, North Carolina and Georgia. Texas has consistently led the nation in having the highest percentage of its population without health insurance in the Gallup survey.

Source: Mogmismo

The religious right has been handed a number of setbacks in recent days, with a unanimous Iowa Supreme Court and the Vermont Legislature legalizing same-sex marriage within days of each other. For this subset of American Christians who have found their power waning, the backlash has been severe. Vermont and Iowa are “evil,” “perverse” and bent on “destroying democracy itself,” religious right leaders say.

The National Organization for Marriage, the group that spent millions to pass California’s Prop 8, is releasing television and radio ads in key states to dissuade passage of gay rights legislation.

The video says it features a California doctor, a New Jersey church member and a Massachusetts parent, but the Human Rights Campaign got a hold of the audition tapes, which state otherwise.

“What’s next for the National Organization for Marriage? Will they hire legendary infomercial pitchman Ron Popeil to hawk their phony agenda,” asked HRC spokesman Brad Luna. “This ad is full of outrageous falsehoods — and they don’t even come out of the mouths of real people.”

While National Organization for Marriage attempts to portray a “loving,” albeit inaccurate portrayal of events in recent days, other prominent religious right leaders are not mincing words.

“Same-sex ‘marriage’ is a movement driven by wealthy homosexual activists and a liberal elite determined to destroy not only the institution of marriage, but democracy as well,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “The radical Left wants to destroy the traditional union of one man and one woman across the country and they will not rest until they do so.”

Liberty Counsel’s Mat Barber said Congress and the White House are filled with “people who are bent on thumbing their nose at God.” He said, “I believe that the purveyors of evil around the country feel emboldened right now with the current political climate in Washington, DC.”

His colleague Mat Staver said: “By redefining marriage, the Vermont legislature removed the cornerstone of society and the foundation of government. The consequences will rest on their shoulders and upon those passive objectors who know what to do but lack the courage to stand against this form of tyranny.”

Conservative radio host Michael Savage went unhinged when the Iowa marriage decision was announced.

“So there are the vermin now celebrating twisted perverse marriage in the middle of America. It’s a victory for perversion in my opinion. You want me to tell you what makes me sick? When I see two puffy white males kissing each other, I wanna puke. When I see two women kissing each other, on the lips, as lovers, I wanna vomit. Why? It’s unnatural. It’s against all of the laws of mankind. It’s against all the laws of humankind. It is suicide for a society to embrace such behavior.  . . . When a society goes insane and goes off the rails, they celebrate perversity and diversity.“

The Catholic League sent an e-mail to supporters that read, “Vermont is a lily-white state populated by left-wingers who are anti-traditional marriage and anti-family. Exactly what we would expect of a population where more people believe in nothing than anywhere else in the nation.”

Bob Knight of Concerned Women for America said the Iowa decision will mean the end of the United States. “God Almighty created marriage thousands of years before the men of Sodom thought they had a better idea,” he said. “If judicial tyrants have their way, America will outdo Sodom and even decadent Greece and Rome.”

One religious right leader laid the Iowa decision and Vermont vote at the feet of the religious right movement. “I’m afraid that the pro-family movement — eager to provide secular, public-policy arguments against ‘gay marriage’ — has failed to convey the monstrous evil of expanding, state-sanctioned homosexualism in our midst,” said Peter Labarbera of Americans for the Truth about Homosexuality.