Tag: gay marriage

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We’re Number 12! We’re Number 12!

Okay, maybe that’s a bit premature, but just a few hours ago, the Minnesota House of Representatives voted 75-59 to pass a bill legalizing gay marriage. If it gets through the Senate and is signed by Governor Dayton, we’d be the 12th state in the U.S. to do so. (Kinda weird to think that in November, we were voting about a provision to the state constitution defining marriage as “man and woman.”) I’ve said before that I don’t like talking about politics here, but I did a little research and found a few things that may or may not be enlightening:

1) The voting was almost split down party lines, Democrats for and Republicans against. Almost. As it turned out, two Democrats and four Republicans crossed the proverbial carpet. Dems had the House majority, so the legislation was already likely to pass, but the fact that the vote wasn’t decided exclusively according to party lines is at least mildly refreshing.

2) They passed an amendment to add “civil” to “marriage” in the bill, which I think is a great decision. If a particular church or organization chooses not to marry a couple, they can’t be punished for refusing to do so. Some people may complain that “civil” is irrelevant because marriage is a religious institution, but while I understand their point, there’s a problem they likely don’t know, haven’t considered or blatantly ignore.

3) There are 1,138 federal laws and 515 state laws in Minnesota granting specific rights to married couples that are unavailable to gay couples. 1,653 laws. Think about how big that number is. If you assigned each law to a day on a calendar, that calendar would be four years and four months long and none of them can apply to gay couples in Minnesota because they can’t get married.

So that’s the scoop of the hour. House Representatives made their votes for various reasons, not all of which were their political affiliation. They chose to legalize civil gay marriage, so regardless of your beliefs about them being loved or damned in the eyes of God, this decision was more about granting gay couples the same rights in the eyes of the law. Welcome to being Number 12, kids.

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Vote NO to prevent gay moonshine!

I tend to avoid writing about politics on here, primarily because it makes me feel all icky, and it always gets worse toward the end of October/beginning of November. Consider the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy:

Ohio and Florida are considered swing states for this election. The presidential candidate who wins their electoral votes is likely to get elected. Then Hurricane Sandy hammered the East Coast at the beginning of the week. President Barack Obama could have kept campaigning, but he took a detour and did his presidential duty, focusing his attention on areas that will likely need governmental assistance to recover.

Chris Christie, a staunch Republican who gave a speech at the Republican National Convention, is the governor of New Jersey, one of the states that got hammered. People are labeling Christie as a traitor because he wants to help the citizens of his state: he’s accepting aid from the Democratic President Obama.

In other words, these two guys (who happen to be politicians) are showing concern for victims of a major natural disaster and some people are mad at them because of it. Like I said, it makes me feel icky.

But the reason I started writing this is because of something that’s going to be on my ballot in just a few days. There are two major amendments for Minnesota’s Constitution being proposed and I don’t like either of them, but the one I find more upsetting is the “Recognition of Marriage” amendment.

Here’s the specific wording that will be on the ballot: “Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?”

My first objection is that the Constitution should not be used to take away people’s rights. Period. It’s meant to protect us from the government, from abuses of power, and generally from ourselves. The only amendment of the U.S. Constitution that took away its citizens’ rights was the 18th, the prohibition of alcohol, and I’m sure it would have worked perfectly if not for all that “people making moonshine and the underground alcohol trade” stuff.

Thus, less than 15 years later, the 21st Amendment was enacted, repealing the 18th Amendment. The only amendment to remove power from people—the power to get liquored up, vomit on your neighbor’s front porch and pass out—was eliminated. But now some people want to do it here in Minnesota. They want to take away people’s rights. They want to grab our Constitution, wipe their asses with it, then tell us that the giant smear that’s been added is an improvement.

Aside from how the Constitution shouldn’t remove people’s rights, my second objection is that proponents of the Amendment never mention one important thing: gay marriage is already illegal in Minnesota. Can’t do it. If a gay couple wants to get married, they have to leave the state.

Instead of mentioning its illegality, they talk about how if the Amendment doesn’t pass, teachers will tell their students about gay marriage, make them choose to be gay and cause the universe to erupt in a gigantic ball of fire. Okay, maybe not the last one, but if that’s their rationale, if the proponents of the amendment are right about how teachers will say this illegal activity is okay, then it’ll only be a matter of time before chemistry teachers tell students how to make meth in their bathtubs.

So that’s a really quick summary of my opposition to the amendment: the Constitution shouldn’t be used to take away people’s rights and it’s unnecessary because it’s preventing something that already can’t be done. You might agree with me, you might not, but please remember when you vote on November 6th that any amendments to the Constitution should be written in ink, not bullshit.