Gay Marriage Turns 1 in Minnesota

On November 3, 2012, I wrote a screed, delineating my position on the pending Minnesota Constitutional Amendment vote, banning gay marriage in this great state. Three days later, I encouraged everyone to go to the polls and vote NO!

The amendment suffered a resounding defeat, much to the shock and dismay of the Minnesota GOP. For months, they had been predicting that Minnesota would join other states in writing discrimination into their constitution. But this great citizenry decided otherwise. 

It was interesting to see the breakdown by county. The seven county Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area overwhelmingly voted NO! Rural counties all over the state were either evenly split or overwhelmingly for the ban. There was one anomaly that I cannot explain, even to this day. Way down on the border of Minnesota and Iowa, there's a tiny county called Blue Earth. They voted heavily against the ban. Thank you, my rural blood brothers and sisters.

Elsewhere on social media, directly after the vote, I began calling for the state legislature (now swung to the Democrats, including the governorship) to make gay marriage legal in this state. I received a lot of flak for that position, with the argument that legalizing gay marriage would be "overstepping".

I didn't buy it. It was obvious that the majority of voters cared about the issue in a positive light, enough to flip the entire state House and Senate, including the executive branch, over to the side of those that believe freedom for gays and lesbians to marry is written into the common understanding of what is not discrimination.

Through no fault of my own, the legislature heard mine and a whole host of others' calls. On May 9, 2013, the Minnesota House passed gay marriage into law. The Senate and the governor soon followed suit. Best part of all, two of the four Republican legislators that voted for gay marriage, Jennifer Loon of Eden Prairie and Pat Garofolo of Farmington, were those I have had great contact with and also live in the latter's district.

Happy birthday, gay marriage in Minnesota!

MN House Passes Gay Marriage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Passage in the Senate is a formality and Governor Dayton will sign this bill!

Thank you to all the people in the State that believed in my call (not that you listened to me, specifically) to jump on the General Election failure of the constitutional ban on gay marriage in Minnesota and fight for actual legalization of gay marriage.

I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Even better...my favorite Republican legislator, Jennifer Loon of Eden Prairie ALSO voted yes!!!!

Edit:  My House Rep voted yes, as well!  He was one of the 4 Republicans who defected.  Thank you Pat Garofalo!

Family Research Council Wants You to Drive a Horse and Buggy

The Family Research Council, a far right wing organization in the United States, against everything that disagrees with the Bible - with exception to genocide and killing homosexuals and disobedient children, god-sanctioned kidnapping and rape, forced silence of women, and..well, you get the point.  They pretend they believe in biblical morality but throw away the stuff they deem bad.

In the end, they look like fools.

Anyway, here is there latest petition, sent out on Valentine's Day, that they hoped everyone on their email list would send to their Congressman or Senator:

[Representative/Senator], as one of your constituents, I ask that you please use your influence to urge the Supreme Court to uphold the Keep Horses and Buggies Legal Act and state statutes banning the use of cars. The owner/horse relationship between a family and his animal is a universally accepted social tradition that transcends all cultures and predates any religion. It is essential for transportation and the stability of society - not to mention the reduction in potholes and fewer incidences of horse meat infused meat products. I respectfully request that you do all in your power to urge the Court to uphold traditional carriages. Thank you for your service to our country.

How sweet.  These people are so stuck in the past, they actually feel as if the Supreme Court must push to keep us from moving on with our newer knowledge and  technology and throw out our cars in lieu of horses and buggies.

I just have one question:  Who shovels all the horse apples?

Here is the original text if you care to read it.

Kirk Cameron has No Clue About Biblical Marriage

While on Piers Morgan's show on CNN (yeah, as usual, I'm late to the party), Kirk Cameron said that homosexuality is against what God created as perfect in the Bible with Adam and Eve, in Genesis.

Unfortunately for Kirk, he seems to be parroting right wing talking points without having actually read the Bible from cover to cover, which I have done myself, at least twenty times.  This should actually surprise many people who have heard Kirk's conversion story, where he says that, from that day forward, the Scriptures came alive to him.  It would seem that only a few select Scriptures came alive.  The rest he conveniently ignored.

You see, Adam and Eve were not married.  According to the book of Genesis, they were a man and a woman, but they weren't married.  There was no marriage.  No marriage license was issued to them.  God did not perform a marriage ceremony in a church with a hallowed vow that the Eve would forever obey Adam and Adam would throw his dirty socks on the table and Even would have to smile sweetly, kneel down, and rub his feet.  There wasn't even a law that gave Adam and Eve the right to get married.  Also, because there wasn't a law that Adam and Eve could be married, there was also no implied principle that Adam couldn't marry another man.

Wait...there wasn't another man he could marry anyway?  Oh...riiiight.  Which brings me to the reason why Kirk Cameron has obviously not read the Bible thoroughly.

In the beginning, there was Adam and Eve.  Adam and Eve had kids the old fashioned way.  No artificial means were necessary, no adoptions available.  No, they simply "knew" each other.  But their generations carried on, correct?  Yep.  Kirk, brothers and sisters got busy with each other in Genesis.  They had kids and cousins had kids and uncles and nieces had kids.  All kinds of relatives had relations with relatives near and far and they all had kids together.  It was all one big, happy family there for a while.

Then God does weird things in his inerrant and completely inspired word (Kirk Cameron's assumption).  He orders a prophet of his to buy a prostitute and take her for his wife.  His own blessed people get pissed at a foreigner who slept with one of their women, so they circumcise all the foreigners of the land, then murder them - then they steal their wives and daughters for themselves.  One of God's tribes were short on estrogen so they lay in wait, at God's command, for women to come out and dance, then they kidnapped them and took them for their own wives (You can watch this live in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers).

Many men of renown, godly men, men after God's own heart, had many wives.  The stories around these women were beautiful (especially David's women) and not once was it condemned by God.  He had many an opportunity to ridicule David for his polygamous practices but nary a word.  None.  In the case of Solomon, God only cared that he married foreign wives.  Yes, God would be considered racist if he wasn't so perfect and holy that we don't get to pick on him for doing everything he tells us not to do.

Kirk, there are many more stories of all shapes and sizes about marriages in the Bible.  Only, they were never called "marriages".  Unfortunately for your rhetoric, the Bible never says that marriage should be between a man and a woman.  Right wing leaders would want you to think that the Bible says that.  But it doesn't.

Rather than looking at all the cool ways one can get married if they follow the literal Bible, why not adopt the REAL talking points between those covers.  Like the fact that homosexuals need to die, right along with rebellious children.  The fact that destruction of civilization pointed to the sexual deviancy of the people in those societies that were destroyed.  Those are the real principles on homosexuality in the Bible.

Don't look to the Bible to define other's lives, Kirk.  It gets messy in a hurry.  That's simply because you're relying on sheepherders and camel riders who thoughts that a whisper of wind was the breath of the gods.  Let's progress together and accept the reality that people are people and they deserve the same love and respect as those you claim should be the picture of a great society.  In the arena of ideas, your arguments have no basis and you will lose.  It's inevitable.

Love,

I. C.