Minnesota Public Radio has done an excellent story about how the anti-gay marriage amendment is playing in the Iron Range’s largest city of Hibbing. MPR’s Sasha Aslanian did a marvelous job talking to people on both sides of the issue as they organize ahead of this fall’s big vote.
In my experience no issue causes as much cultural discomfort here as gay rights. Even the acknowledgement of gay people as human beings is very difficult for some in this more socially conservative region. That’s why these conversations are so very important, though. As the larger culture shifts to accept more rights for people who happen to be gay, this “one man, one woman” marriage amendment is a final, divisive attempt to enshrine older traditions into the state constitution. By all appearances the vote will be very close and the Range, a typically DFL area, is probably one of the most important battlegrounds.
I’ve embedded the MPR story below:
On Monday night at 6:30 the Mountain Iron City Council will vote on a resolution of opposition to the marriage amendment. The symbolism will be thick. Mt. Iron, the “First City” of the Mesabi Range is also home to the region’s largest iron mine and is located more or less in the center of the Iron Range. This one vote won’t necessarily predict the result of the fall referendum, but shows the degree to which this issue forces Rangers into an uncomfortable position: talking about our most personal feelings and the parts of our family history that aren’t bellowed across a downtown bar for a laugh.
I grew up on the Range in a typical sort of way. As I’ve gotten to know friends who are gay I can only come to one logical conclusion: passing an unnecessary amendment isolating gay people as a class without rights is wrong. It will hurt people. It doesn’t make other marriages stronger; it only spreads pain and injustice. I will vote “no” and though I strive to be fairly open minded here on the blog about political opinions different than my own, I am not going to be shy about my thoughts on this issue.
I have yet to encounter someone who doesn’t think homosexuals are human beings.
The problem isn’t that they aren’t human beings, the problem is they are seeking to normalize something which is wicked and injurious and alter social norms in a retrograde fashion.
Wicked says you. Injurous to whom? If gay people are human than we don’t have to single them out in the state constitution for exclusion from civil rights. We have a legal process – the legislature – already in place to handle marriage and most other civil matters.
Social norms always affect law, since time immemorial. I do not believe it is in the interests of our society to enscribe the old norms in the constitutional law because this *might* be the last time such a vote could pass. Especially when the only written statements describing homosexuality as wicked are religous in nature. Religions can and should continue to handle the matter as they see fit. But the contitution serves all. We obviously disagree, but this is how I see it.
Wicked says God, I merely assent. Injurious to society and to themselves first and foremost. People who choose to engage in homosexual acts aren’t being singled out.
The whole motivator behind the amendment, which has been offered before but was blocked by the DFL, is to avoid the scenario where the state judges legislate from the bench and declare for homosexual marriage thus enshrining the social norms of nine people rather than those of the population of Minnesota.
It would not surprise me at all if we continue to follow in the footsteps of Canada and we find people put in prison for simply quoting what the Bible says about homosexuality.
Make that seven people. Oops.
Your argument is premised on homosexuality being a choice, which is an antiquated and incorrect assumption. I believe God made gay people. Now, we mortals have to sort out what that means. I err on the side of freedom and civil rights. My marriage will not be affected, nor will anyone else’s.
I have no idea what “normal” is. The state marries a lot of messed up, nonreproductive heterosexuals. I don’t see why a committed relationship between two people who seek to form a household in our communities is bad for anyone. I promise, it won’t catch. These are real people all around us and they don’t get to decide a damn thing about our relationships. Again, religious arguments are valid in religious contexts. But the state serves all and while judges don’t want to overrule the legislative process they occasionally will — because their constitutional role is to protect the minority when their rights are unjustly denied.
And yes…God also made Judas, but that doesn’t qualify Judas’ actions as right. As difficult as it is for you to accept there a right & wrong in the world Aaron, there is.
Your view of God is much too narrow and self-serving. Your moral compass spins with the whims of the world..
Well, I suppose God gets to decide all that.
Judas made a choice. Gay people do not get to decide who they are. And people are free to have the interpretation of God they believe. That’s in the constitution. And it’s a beautiful thing I hope doesn’t get mucked up by social politics.
Gay folks are no more prohibited from making choices than are pedofiles….or alcoholics…or heterosexuals…or writers…or engineers…or adulters…or those wishing to, or committing incest.
All have the free will to make choices, thank God.
I always wanted to be a writer, but decided not to. I know adultery would be exciting and open new life-long loving relationships also but so far, decided against that as well…
You’re comparing gay people to adulterers and pedophiles, which is a very old and false equivelence, one of the ones that I believe dehumanizes people as discussed in my post.
Adultery violates a preexisting social construct, marriage, that both parties had agreed upon. That’s why it’s bad. And it’s not even illegal, nor is it mentioned in the constitution.
Yes, everyone gets to make choices. If gay people want to commit to a loving relationship, a “small c” conservative construct that is based on sharing a household and life together, I don’t see a reason for it to be prohibited in the constitution. Unless, of course, you base your opinions upon a belief that being born gay is some kind of biblical crime. And if you believe that, well, we’re at an impasse here. Because that is exactly the sort of belief that tortured friends of mine from the day they were born. I do not agree with that. It is based on a specific interpretation of a religion that isn’t shared by everyone in this country and shouldn’t be inscribed into a constitution that serves everyone.
“they are seeking to normalize something which is wicked and injurious and alter social norms in a retrograde fashion.”
I thought you were referring to the MN GOP legislating discrimination in our state constitution!
Being gay is not a choice. My dad tried to be straight for 25 years. He was a fantastic father of three sons and was a devoted husband for 18 years. He finally came out because he couldn’t stand living a lie anymore.
I wish government would have, in the past, simply created one “civil union” law that covered all unions – gay or straight, then there would not be this issue with semantics concerning marriage.
There is another way at looking at sin and homosexuality. If homosexuality is a sin, one can be born a homosexual and still be practicing sin. Being born that way doesn’t justify it – which is the base argument of many who support it. With original sin, we are all born programmed to behave in ways that violate God’s desires for our behavior. We are born to rebel; we have free will to decide what to do with that. The argument then shifts to “What really is God’s stand on homosexuality in today’s world?”
And in regard to marriage as a civil right: It simply isn’t. The government has instituted all sorts of limits on who can and cannot be married based on age, blood relation, number of spouses. As it stands now, a homosexual has no more right to be married than an 11-year-old, my niece and I or the cast of “Sister Wives.”
Is that right? Is that wrong? We probably won’t truly know until God ((if He, She, or It (Spaghetti Monster))) out there decides to comment. Even Election Day won’t tell us despite how the populace votes.
The controversy boils down to the basic question of whether the majority religion can force it’s morals down the throat of everyone around them, and codify it into law through an election. If the majority says it’s so, it’s so, right?
For a country that glorifies individualism and doing things ‘your own way’, there sure is a lot of stink raised when anyone challenges the dominant beliefs.
This reminds me quite a bit of the 1960s, when some religious folks argued that God didn’t consider minorities to be equal to whites. Y’know, since slavery was the norm in Jesus’ time, and the Bible didn’t speak out against it. Funny how I don’t hear that argument anymore. I doubt I’ll hear the anti-gay argument in 20 years.
Everyone’s children should be encouraged to read this comment section. It may be their only chance to see actual dinosaurs before they finally become extinct.
>>Your argument is premised on homosexuality being a choice, which is an antiquated and incorrect assumption.
And your argument is premised on a bizarre acceptance of a rigid and hidebound biological determinism which you would likely reject in any other aspect of life. Someone is born and they MUST engage in homosexual behavior? No. Someone is born and they are prone to temptation to any given vice? That is entirely credible but it hardly legitimizes the vice. We are ALL prone to particular vices, but we aren’t all prone to that particular vice. Seeking to rationalize and justify a given vice is hardly a solution.
>The controversy boils down to the basic question of whether the majority religion can force it’s morals down the throat of everyone around them, and codify it into law through an election.
We’ve been doing that forever. Do you think the government should be able to force an employer to not discriminate against Swedes? The government can because people concluded that it was wrong to discriminate based on race and the government now coerces employers and has limited their rights in hiring. This was argued on a moral basis and confirmed by elections. The argument you try to make is the one that gets rolled out when someone doesn’t agree with the morals under discussion.
As this debate gets played out nationally, it’s funny how the people who are super uptight about who is gay aren’t even gay themselves. Not even the slightest little bit.
Paul…With the path we’re headed you’re correct, you won’t be hearing any anti-gay discussion 20 years from now. It’ll center around the legality of priests having their way with boys and you having more than one spouse, male or female..
Paul…you were way off on the 20 years. California is on the verge of passing a law to legalize the marriage of three folks…
“State Senator Mark Leno of California (D) is coming to your rescue. Leno is sponsoring legislation to allow a child to have more than two legal parents. Why, if Dad and Mom weren’t good enough, now you can have Dad, Mom, and Mom’s good friend Uncle Charlie (who looks a lot like you) to all be your parents.”
“Leno chortled, “The bill brings California into the 21st century, recognizing that there are more than Ozzie and Harriet families today.”
Karen Anderson, of the California Protective Parents Association, said, “It’s hard enough for children to be split up two ways, much less multiple ways.” It will certainly make basic conversations more difficult. “Mom, can I have a lollipop?” “Go ask your dads, and your other three moms.”
Gay marriage doesn’t lead to legalized rape. Quite the opposite.
That legislation you mentioned doesn’t allow anyone to marry multiple people. It just allows a legally recognized godparent to keep kids out of foster care.
I’d rather leave kids with a gay couple than a bigot like you. Less chance of them turning out stupid and gullible.
There you go again…classic leftist Alinsky tactic, “if you’re losing a debate, resort to name calling vs. dealing in the facts.”
The article by Gerald Nachman dated July 6th, 2012 so seemed to fit our dialogue…
“I was immersed in the Supreme Court’s decision on health care when Anderson Cooper upstaged Chief Justice John Roberts with the announcement that he is gay. Pretty much everyone in America was as stunned as I was. What a week. I recently learned that Truman Capote was also gay. You just never can tell these days.
The New York Times story says that Cooper’s “announcement makes him the most prominent openly gay journalist on American television,” leading to a lot of speculation by viewers about who the lesser known gays on TV news might be. I have my own hunches and, thanks to Cooper coming out at last, I now feel at liberty to reveal them:
Walter Cronkite was forced to remain in the closet lest it be known that he was a transsexual who spent much of his time off camera in women’s closets. He was famous for doing a female strip tease at parties, but few realized that he also often dressed up like Carmen Miranda for a night on the town. As for Chet Huntley and David Brinkley — “Good night, David”…”Good night, Chet.” Need I say more?
Rachel Maddow has made it not jut OK but fashionable to be a gay talk show host, so one wonders how long it will be until David Letterman and Jay Leno finally fess up to their own sexual identities. The pressure is now on for gays in positions of power on TV to consider coming out, especially those with shows in ratings trouble, as Brian Stelter writes in the Times on Cooper’s announcement. Look for Conan O’Brien, whose late night show is not doing too well, to make a startling announcement shortly.
Stelter notes, “The daytime talk format seemingly demands hosts to come forward with the personal details of their lives.” Ellen DeGeneres broke TV’s “lesbo glass ceiling,” as TV industry insiders call it, and it didn’t hurt her any, nor Rosie O’Donnell. Maddow is adamant on the subject, telling the Times: “I do think that if you’re gay you have a responsibility to come out,” which is sure to help push gays out of the apparently crowded video closet. Are you listening, Matt Lauer? Al Roker? Had only Ann Curry claimed she was gay, she might still be the Today co-host.
A New York Times op-ed piece notes that Entertainment Weekly discusses “the new art of coming out” among stars on both coasts, presaging a flood of TV journalists rushing to reveal their gayness. It is not unlikely that agencies handling television journalists and talk show hosts are encouraging their clients, whether gay or straight, to declare their sexual leanings ASAP and increase their marketability.
CNN may well be a hotbed of gay anchors, according to whispers around the water coolers at Fox News. Larry King, despite his many marriages, could be latently gay, and his five ex-wives just an elaborate cover-up to keep Larry’s real sex life from the public. Ditto Piers Morgan, King’s flirty replacement, who so far has declined to state his sexual preference. I have not yet heard any rumors about Wolf Blitzer, so we will just have to wait for an announcement from Wolf.
It now seems clear that Anderson Cooper is the Rosa Parks of TV anchors.”
If we start putting things in the State constitution because we believe god said so, where does it end? If we were somehow to end up with a Muslim majority, should they be able to pass a mandatory veiling amendment because Allah told them to? Wouldn’t the Minnesota Supreme Court then have a duty to overturn such a law because it violated the US and MN Constitutions?
The church and the state are separated by the First Amendment of US Bill of Rights, AND by the Sections 16 and 17 of Article II of the Minnesota Constitution. We should not, therefore, make laws, nor especially amendments based solely on religious arguments.
Nor, have we yet, as a state, passed an amendment that restricts individual freedoms of citizens (outside of matters of taxation). There was an attempt in 1918 to prohibit the manufacture and the sale of liquor, but the citizens of Minnesota rejected this. All other amendments have either been about tax policy, government and legal structure, or extending individual freedoms.
I think it would set a very bad precedent to start restricting the individual freedoms of citizens in the state constitution. America and Minnesota are about freedom.
If we start putting things in the State constitution because we believe god said so, where does it end? If we were somehow to end up with a Muslim majority, should they be able to pass a mandatory veiling amendment because Allah told them to? Wouldn’t the Minnesota Supreme Court then have a duty to overturn such a law because it violated the US and MN Constitutions?
The church and the state are separated by the First Amendment of US Bill of Rights, AND by the Sections 16 and 17 of Article II of the Minnesota Constitution. We should not, therefore, make laws, nor especially amendments based solely on religious arguments.
Nor, have we yet, as a state, passed an amendment that restricts individual freedoms of citizens (outside of matters of taxation). There was an attempt in 1918 to prohibit the manufacture and the sale of liquor, but the citizens of Minnesota rejected this. All other amendments have either been about tax policy, government and legal structure, or extending individual freedoms.
I think it would set a very bad precedent to start restricting the individual freedoms of citizens in the state constitution. America and Minnesota are about freedom.