Category Archives: Men and Women

Relationships, Sex, Marriage, Love, Hate and Dating

Chivalry Is Deconstructed

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

This woman is upset that a man didn’t help her lift her bag into the overhead compartment.  Is chivalry dead?

Well, honey, it’s like this:  a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, right?  If he offered to help, that would mean he’s assuming you can’t do it alone, that you’re not as Good as a Man.  That’s sexism and like all modern sensitive men, he abhors the thought of doing anything sexist.  A committed feminist, he’s standing there letting you be the strong and independent woman you are, lifting your own bag.  Sure, you helped another woman later, but that’s Grrrl Power and it’s okay because no men were involved so no female egos were bruised in the process.

Or possibly, he’s thinking this might be a teachable moment.  Everybody on that 6:00 a.m. flight is a business-person Just Like You.  They all packed their own bags.  They all shlepped their own bags aboard.  They all lifted their own bags.  The difference is: they put some thought into what they were packing.  They didn’t cram everything in their entire wardrobe into that bag.  They can lift theirs without help.  Perhaps he’s standing aside to give you the opportunity to make a life-changing discovery about yourself . . . that you need to organize your life better, plan ahead farther, pack less so you can lift your own bag without doing an Olympic event.  Could be he’s using Tough Love to help you to help yourself.  A bag-lifter is an enabler.  A bystander creates the opportunity for life-style changing.  Should you be sneering at a person who’s trying to help?

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s Not About You.  Maybe he’s got problems of his own, just as you have problems of your own.  He’s dealing with his.  You deal with yours.  As equals.  Powerfully.  Independently.  Alone.

Joe Doakes

A woman needs a man like a fish needs carry-on baggage.

The One You Love

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

My wife and I went to Har Mar last weekend, to walk the mall. Yes, I am a mall-walker. Hey, it’s the only exercise she can get me to do, so it’s better than nothing.

An older man was sitting on a bench, people-watching. We recognized him as a guy who retired from my wife’s workplace last year. Effeminate mannerisms, trim physique, perfect hair: everyone assumed he was gay but so what, he’s a nice guy and he works hard. He never married, lived at home so he could care for his Mom until she died, and now he sits in the mall, alone.

The best argument the gay rights crowd advanced for normalizing their lifestyle was that everyone deserves to grow old with someone they love. I felt sad for him as my wife and I walked away, holding hands.

Of course, I recognize that “grow old with the one you love” is a slippery slope. There’s no reason “the one you love” must be limited. As an intellectual argument, it’s just as valid when applied to child brides, first cousins, man-boy love and probably other arrangements I’m too squeamish to wonder about. I accept that the fundamental organizational unit for any long-term stable society must be the nuclear family, lest it collapse in an orgy of self-indulgence. I’m not certain whether the next big push to expand marriage come from Muslims in plural marriages or feminists living alone with their cats; I am certain the next big push is coming.

But I still feel sorry for that man, sitting in the mall, alone.

If I were an ultra-orthodox Mormon, my ears would be perking up these days.

Match Made In Heaven

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A move has begun in Oklahoma to get the state out of the marriage business.  While the news story on the subject phrases it as “prohibiting marriage”, what the proposal would really do is end the practice of issuing government marriage licenses, and leave the institution of marriage – or whatever – to the individual.

If you wanted to marry in a church – provided the church recognizes your form of union – then mazel tov.   And if they don’t – or you’re just not that religious, anyway – then you would just write up a contract, and live by it.

Of course, this proposal will likely rile up both extremes; the extreme left has come to regard redefining marriage (in the eyes of the state, anyway) as its big victory; this would be removing the issue from the table, which would be a slap in the left’s face akin to turning the Stonewall Bar into a condo development.

Social conservatives – or at least the short-sighted ones – will howl like stuck cats, too; many of them see government as a vehicle for building society in their image, no less than the far left does.  But it is short-sighted; by getting marriage out of the public sphere, they can save the traditional version of it now that “let’s let government define our social mores” thing is backfiring badly.

By getting the state out of marriage, everybody wins; traditional marriage can sprout where it’s bloomed; “alternative” ideals of the institution can grow between whomever wants them.

Of course, the extreme left isn’t looking for a win-win.   And we’ll have to see about the social right.

But for now?  The idea is a brilliant one.

Rebranding

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

President Obama celebrated the 41st anniversary of Roe v. Wade with one curious omission – he never mentioned the word “abortion.”

Instead, he dwelt on access to health care, reproductive freedom, right to privacy, safe and healthy communities, opportunities to fulfill their dreams . . . what a snooze.  That same litany of mushy feel-good platitudes could roll across the Teleprompter any day of the week.  We’re here to talk about killing babies, something like 50 million of them since the decision was issued.  And according to Democrats, that’s a good thing. Fine, then say so.

It’s almost as if the President is afraid to speak the plain truth, for fear people will recoil from it.  Perhaps we haven’t been de-sensitized enough.  Might be time to recycle some Dead Baby jokes from my junior high school days.  Remember those?  Can’t remember the last time I heard a Dead Baby joke.  Perhaps with 50 million of them piled up, it’s not funny anymore.

Joe Doakes

One can hope.

How many Planned Parenthood executives does it take to change a light bulb?

None.  They just declare darkness a woman’s right.

Today’s Feminist Hero

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Wendy Davis – “Abortion Barbie”, the lefty pinup girl who shut down the Texas legislature with a screaming mob of ignorant infanticide buffs – will be campaigning for Al Franken on the “War on Womyn” slate.

Wendy Davis. Trophy wife, baby-death advocate, Al Franken supporter.

Her bio – the inevitable “nineteen year old single mother who worked her way through Harvard” – is the sort of “Strong Womyn!” narrative that seems to have been snatched from the Lifetime Network.

Oh, yeah – it’s fudged just a bit:

Davis was 21, not 19, when she was divorced. She lived only a few months in the family mobile home while separated from her husband before moving into an apartment with her daughter.

A single mother working two jobs, she met Jeff Davis, a lawyer 13 years older than her, married him and had a second daughter. He paid for her last two years at Texas Christian University and her time at Harvard Law School, and kept their two daughters while she was in Boston.

Hey, wait!  ”Trophy Wife” doesn’t fit the narrative!  What the…?

When they divorced in 2005, he was granted parental custody, and the girls stayed with him. Wendy Davis was directed to pay child support.

In a state where women can normally win custody after killing someone, that says something.  The first husband went on to run for office as a Republican.

Davis apparently gave her second husband the brown helmet the day after she graduated from Harvard.

Anyway – Abortion Barbie will be coming to Minnesota to campaign for Franken…

…unless she made that up, too.

Please, Al Franken campaign.  I beg of you.  Bring Abortion Barbie to Minnesota.  Feature her up at the podium with you.

Wendy Davis is the face of feminism today.

It’s Not Them. It’s You.

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Obama’s poll numbers are crashing – as in, post-Fallujah-George-W-Bush crashing.

He’s cratering fastest among women – who were, along with African-Americans, the lynchpin of both of his victories.

Tammy Bruce looks over Obama’s collapse among women:

The unfolding realities of Obamacare and its destruction of health insurance plans and personal, patient-doctor relationships confirm women’s fears that health insurance under Obamacare is not superior, but is quite inferior to health care they were free to choose before this regrettable law was in force. What women voted against in 2010 has come true, and we’re not happy about it. This may come as surprise to Mr. Obama and the people in his inner circle, but women’s health care involves more than sound bites and pithy one-liners.

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With all the bad news descending on Mr. Obama as a direct result of his high-handedness and deceit on Obamacare, surely nothing could come as a greater shock to him than that women, the one constituency he has relied on the most, other than blacks, refuse to be swindled out of their health care freedoms and to be used to help perpetrate this massive fraud on the American people.

Well, I for one will believe it when I see it.  In particular, single women who don’t have children are among the most querulously gullible liberals there are.   They fell for that “vote to protect your lady parts” bilge in epic numbers, after all.

But maybe there’s hope.

Our Person Of Either Gender Implementing The Rights And Responsibilities Of A Spouse And Parent, Who Art In Heaven…

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The big news at the Minnesota Continuing Legal Education Real Estate Institute was same-sex marriage passed this Summer and how does that affect spousal rights in Minnesota?

I thought the biggest laugh was this section of Minn. Stat. 517.201:

“Subd. 2.Rules of construction. When necessary to implement the rights and responsibilities of spouses or parents in a civil marriage between persons of the same sex under the laws of this state, including those that establish parentage presumptions based on a civil marriage, gender-specific terminology, such as “husband,” “wife,” “mother,” “father,” “widow,” “widower,” or similar terms, must be construed in a neutral manner to refer to a person of either gender.

Good news, Mitch, you are no longer a Husband or Father, you now are a person of either gender implementing the rights and responsibilities of a spouse and parent.

Frankly, I prefer “Interchangeable Marital Unit” or since we all know which role men are assigned in divorce court: “Cash Cow.”

Joe Doakes

Conversations I Hope I Hear Someday

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WOMAN:  You’re “mansplaining”. 

GUY: Huh?

WOMAN: “Mansplaining”.  When a guys gives a condescending and inaccurate explanation that the assumption that I’m entirely ignorant on the subject matter or topic.

GUY:  You are utterly ignorant of the subject matter and topic.  Our discussion has shown you haven’t the foggiest clue about the subject.  90 degrees removed from literacy.

WOMAN: You’re doing it again.  You’re mansplaining.

GUY: You’re being a whineanist.  You need to unisexshushupandlearnsomething.

(And SCENE)

Hold The Straw

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One of the least useful arguments against gay marriage was “so it’s about love?  So if you love your goat, or a child, you could marry them?”

Neither goats nor children (age of consent laws notwithstanding) have standing to sign contracts, of course.  It’s kind of a strawman.

But the other, inevitable part of the argument is “so what about polygamy?”

Remember – it’s all about love, and civil rights.  And groups of people most definitely do sign contracts.  So who are we to hold our antiquated “monogamous” standards over polygamists’ heads?

No, it’s not a strawman: 

What’s magical about the number two?

In fact, you could argue that there is an even better argument for polygamy than for same sex marriage. For one thing, there’s a long tradition (just look at the heroes of the Old Testament.) It’s also intimately tied to religious practice, which means that by prohibiting polygamy, we might also be undermining the “free exercise thereof.”

Why should we impose our values on others?

Now, you might say that there is historical evidence to support the fact that polygamy is bad for women and children. This is sophistry. The truth is that right now about half of all marriages end in divorce, and lots of kids are already struggling, so it’s not like traditional marriage is a panacea. Besides, nobody is forcing you to be a polygamist. This is a choice.

And unlike gay marriage, which is entirely a modern Western social construct, Polygamy has occurrred througout human history, including our own. 

There are practical reasons, too. It’s harder and harder these days to make ends meet. As a man, I can only imagine how much more efficient it would be to have one wife in the workforce and another wife at home with the kids. This would be much better for the children than shipping them off to some nursery school. And having three parents is a lot better than having just one … or none.

Yesterday’s SCOTUS decision, and last fall’s election in Minnesota, had clear-ish verdicts; “marriage” is “about love” and “civil rights”.

So what – legally - is the difference between a monogamous and polyamorous family unit, since those are the standards?

Tenthers Like Me

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

US Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, in part on the ground that states should have the right to decide the definition of marriage, the federal government has no Constitutional authority to do it.

Glad to hear States Rights making a comeback with the Left. Let’s remember this when Obama, Feinstein and Bloomberg call for national gun control legislation.

Joe Doakes
Como Park

Attention, liberals; now you’re all “Tenthers!”

Where Have You Gone, Sandra Fluke? The Nation Turns Its Lonely Eyes To You.

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Australia’s Prime Minster, Julia Gillard, flogs the “Gender War” card…

…with the kind of results the American electorate would do well to heed:

But the ploy has backfired with a poll in Fairfax Media showing male voters are abandoning Gillard and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and there is little sign of more women getting behind her.

The telephone poll of 1,400 voters found that since the last survey a month ago Labor’s standing has continued to slide, led entirely by a seven percent exodus of men.

Under a two-party vote, the conservative opposition would romp home in the September 14 elections with 57 percent (up three points) to 43 percent (down three points) for Labor.

Two possible conclusions:  either 1) there are limits to “war on women” rhetoric, or b) Australian voters are just plain smarter than ours are.

Fathers’ Day

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I’ve written about this in the past.  It’s worth another visit.

I’m very ambivalent about Father’s Day.  I used to say I was of two minds – but it’s more like three minds these days.

On the one hand, I’m thankful for the father I have.  My dad was just about the best father a guy could ask for (and still is), in just about every way.  The part I didn’t appreciate about him until I had older kids of my own?  Most guys  learn about being a father, for better or worse, from their own fathers.  My grandfather died when my Dad was five, though.  My grandma raised Dad, and as good a job as she did, she wasn’t a father.  Fathers bring different things to their children than mothers do – including the whole “How to be a dad” thing.  So Dad was kinda winging it.  And I’d like to think that, in the immortal words of Dr. Perry Cox, “he could have done a lot worse”.  Part of the spirit of Father’s Day for me is acknowleding him.  So thanks, Dad!

As to me?  Having kids, and getting to raise them, was the most important thing in my life.  Still is.  And up through about age 11, it was almost purely wonderful and rewarding.  Now, getting my kids through their teenage years and into their twenties has been - I’ll be diplomatic – a challenge.  But if it were easy, everyone would be doing it, wouldn’t they?  On that level, Father’s Day means saying “We survived another year!”.  And that’s not so bad. 

The third thing, though?  Father’s Day makes me angry. 

Our society systematically devalues fatherhood.  It’s the most flagrant in our current urban culture, where a strong majority of babies are born into fatherless homes, where teachers are reporting an epidemic of risk-averse kids afraid to go outside because they’re being raised by risk-averse single women, where entire generations of  young men are growing up with no masculine role models in their lives until they get into their teens – when all the role models are bad. 

But it’s not just in the neighborhood.  It’s all over our society.  Hollywood and Madison Avenue’s model for the mainstream father is Homer Simpson – incompetent, borderline-depraved, saved only by his preternaturally competent, all-enduring and (at least on TV ads) improbably out-of-his-league wife (and sometimes daughter and, occasionally sons before they get the lobotomy that seems to go along with fatherhood in that special little world). 

The current trend in feminist-dominated academia echoes Margaret Mead’s quip from fifty years ago – “men are a biological necessity and a social accident”.  The education system is increasingly marginalizing boys and men of all ages; medicating their masculine traits and treating them as social disorders, shunting boys who refuse to comply and conform onto the “Special Ed” track, making “education” a punitive death march for boys who don’t get the message “go along, get along, conform, keep your butt in the seat and speak when spoken to”.  And that policy is bearing rancid fruit; before long, women will outnumber men in higher education 3:2, with the margin even more grotesque in Education (ensuring the vicious cycle will continue) and the social “sciences” (ditto). 

And while the situation has improved in recent years in many states, the fact is that for many men, “fatherhood” is a legal state of eternal debt and denial; ejected from any meaningful presence in their childrens’ lives by a court system that spent a few decades acting as an agent of Big Feminism and county social service bureaucracies that still largely do, men are relegated to the role of occasional visitors and ATM machines and, often, much worse; a shocking percentage of “domestic abuse” allegations are brought purely to manipulate the system during divorce actions. 

So for a fair chunk of the fathers in our society, “Father’s Day” is a cruel mockery.  And it’s a symptom of the current system that I find I need to hasten to add “I’m not talking about the abusive ones, or the fathers that are nothing more than sperm donors”, as if they’re the majority. 

I focus on the first two views of the holiday, because I’m a lucky guy on both counts.  But let’s be mindful, on this most tongue-in-cheek and pollyannish of all the Hallmark Holidays, that there’s another side to the story.

After The Honeymoon Is Over

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Congrats, same sex marriage supporters.  After five months of noodling non-stop with social policy – gun grabs, forcing daycares into the union racket and so on – Governor Dayton took a few minutes from his grueling day of sitting in his office to come out and sign same-sex marriage into law.

Well, there you go!

Now, when all that wedding excitement wears off, take a moment to think about a few things if you would:

  • Where are the jobs?   Minnesota’s big businesses are doing…OK, provided they’re not in the medical device business.  But while you all were busy campaigning for same sex marriage, Minnesota small-business startups slowed to the worst rate in the entire country.  Which means the small-business jobs of tomorrow, and the mid-sized business jobs a few years down the road, all the coffee shops and repair garages and interior design firms and web design firms we’ll need to run the day to day economy will be…gone.  Nothing.  Bupkes.  They’ll have never existed.  And this is a reversal from recently; it’s a result of policies the DFL has been pushing while y’all were busy watching the same sex marriage debate.
  • Why is daycare so freaking expensive?   Many of you two-income same-sex adoptive couples will be needing daycare (presuming that’s the route you choose at some point or another).   Minnesota’s child care costs are already among the highest in the nation – even higher compared to per capita income.  And yet the DFL majority has been working tirelessly to force childcare providers (and personal care assistants) into a union that six out of seven of them don’t want, that makes no sense (unionizing small business owners? Hello?) and that will do nothing but increase the cost of child or adult care (presuming the providers don’t just eat the cost of the union dues or “fair share” costs).
  • Again – where are the jobs?  The DFL is fixated on raising taxes.  Yeah, yeah, “fair share”, the rich, bla bla bla, but their real plan, the plan to make the actual money, involves raising taxes on business to business purchases and services.  Which means somewhere between 5.5 and 7% of every business’ revenue is going to - poof! – vanish (presuming, again, the businesses don’t pass on the costs, which is a stupid thing to do in a crappy economy).   Do you want a 5-7% pay cut?  How would that work for you right now?

I know – same sex marriage was a big thing for you.  But just as weddings and honeymoons give way to the push and pull of actual married life, the euphoria you feel over getting a legislative milestone passed (I had my moment on my issue ten years ago, so I know how you feel) eventually passes, and you get to dwell on other things.

Like what an unholy has the DFL is making of this state’s economy.  The one we all live in, gay or straight.

Call A Truce In The War On Boys

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Over the past 20 years, society’s largely made it illegal to just be a boy.

For a while, it was an openly-held belief in educational-psychology circles that the niggling traits of typical boyhood – a penchant for rough play and exploratory violence, a disdain, at least through one developmental stage, for verbally-based social interaction (that’s what girls do) in favor of getting outside and mixing it up – were pathologies that needed to be cured, or at least harnessed.  As documented by Christine Hoff-Summers in her classic The War On Boys, “making boys more like girls” became a bit of a crusade in the educational academy during the 1990s and 2000s.  Recess – with all its ritualized rough and tumble – was curtailed, supervised, sometimes abolished.  Via means social, pedagogical and chemical, “educators” tried their darnedest to get boys to sit down, shut up, and get verbal.

It’s led us to a generation of kids who’ve been medicated to a fine sheen, who remain in a state of suspended adolescence well into their thirties in many cases, and in the worst case who don’t know the limits of roughness and violence, since the rituals by which they used to learn how to process that testosterone – rough play, stylized roughhousing, the occasional fight that usually ended in friends staying friends who knew who not to mess with – have been scolded, punished and drugged out of existence.

I don’t know who the woman is who wrote this piece; she sounds like she could be any of a few thousand middle-aged moms in Edina alone, at least in the first couple of grafs.

So, I think that instead of teaching our kids NOT to be violent we need to teach them HOW and WHEN to be violent. We have so many stories of people standing around watching others getting assaulted or verbally attacked and we don’t know why. We have thousands of self-defense classes all over the country. We have anti-bullying programs that tell us to stop bullying but offer no concise steps telling us how. Honestly ask yourself, if you don’t know that you can physically defend yourself, would you really step in to verbally confront someone who is being physically and verbally threatening? I know I wouldn’t.

If we are to raise boys who are willing to step in when a girl is being attacked or fight back when a boy is being vicious, we are going to have to admit that we DO expect violence in some scenarios and teach them the fine lines to walk within. Why wait to learn self-defense as an adult? Why not let them learn it, as they are growing up, with the guidance of their parents? Maybe not all is violence is so bad after all.

Force isn’t necessarily violence.  And not all violence is bad.

And we have raised a generation kids that don’t know the difference.  And it’s our fault.

And by “our fault”, I mean “all you feminists who banned boyhood’s fault”.  Just so we’re clear on that.

Nothing To See Here

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Sally Jo Sorenson of Bluestem Prairie is – I’ll say it again – one of the tiny list of Minnesota leftybloggers who don’t deserve some sort of police surveillance.

But that doesn’t mean she knows how to tell a complete story – or do much beyond apes John Stewart lite snark at the C-squad level.

About a week back, she took a dig at Senator Dave Osmek and his take on the “Marriage Equality” bill while speaking to a class in Glencoe, in a post titled “Among school children: Sen. David Osmek misrepresents marriage bill in Glencoe class visit”.  Osmek said he opposed Same Sex Marriage on First Amendment grounds.

Sorenson (with a little emphasis added by me):

He must have missed this part of the senate bill. It’s right at the top:

363A.26 EXEMPTION BASED ON RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION. Nothing in this chapter prohibits any religious association, religious corporation, or religious society that is not organized for private profit, or any institution organized for educational purposes that is operated, supervised, or controlled by a religious association, religious corporation, or religious society that is not organized for private profit, from:

(1) limiting admission to or giving preference to persons of the same religion or denomination; or

(2) in matters relating to sexual orientation, taking any action with respect to education, employment, housing and real property, or use of facilities. This clause shall not apply to secular business activities engaged in by the religious association, religious corporation, or religious society, the conduct of which is unrelated to the religious and educational purposes for which it is organized.; or

(3) taking any action with respect to the provision of goods, services, facilities, or accommodations directly related to the solemnization or celebration of a marriage that is in violation of its religious beliefs.

And then this bit here, with more emphasis added: 

Or maybe this language in the bill:

Subd. 2. Refusal to solemnize; protection of religious doctrine. Each religious organization, association, or society has exclusive control over its own theological doctrine, policy, teachings, and beliefs regarding who may marry within that faith. A licensed or ordained member of the clergy or other person authorized by section 517.04 to solemnize a marriage is not subject to any fine, penalty, or civil liability for failing or refusing to solemnize a marriage for any reason.

I mean, that’s mighty big of the legislature, not unilaterally abrogating the First Amendment and all.

And if you’re not  a church, a religious educational non-profit or, I dunno, a supplier of rabbinical wine or communion wafers?

If  you’re, say, a baker?  A photographer?

Of course, Osmek did actually say…

“I’m afraid it will eventually inflict on religious institutions,” said Osmek. “The pilgrims came here for religious freedom, and we need to respect that.”

But let’s get past the idea that laws, or even the Constitution, actually protect law-abiding people acting in their own conscience, or that the First Amendment actually protects my right to hold government to ccount, or free association, or the right to decide how my children are raised, or the Second Amendment by itself protects my protect my family and property as I, a law-abiding tax-paying citizen, see fit, or that the the Fourth really guards from unreasonable searches and seizures, or the Fifth absolutely protects due process and the right to face my accuser in court, or the Tenth really enumerates powers.  It takes the Constitution and rigorous vigilance.

And it’s not that the left doesn’t see this, although the primary rights for which the left is universally, rigorously vigilant are the “rights” to expel un-gestated fetuses and make dung paintings of the Virgin Mary.

Osmek said that domestic partners are already given benefits by many businesses and corporations, and feels it best left to the private sector to create its own definition of domestic partnerships. . . .

So businesses get to define two committed people’s relationship? Would any married couple accept that?

It depends what marriage is, to you – doesn’t it?

If marriage is a religious thing to you, then you don’t care what government says about it.

If it’s about getting the same rights and benefits that guy/gal couples get, then why would anyone care? Put another way – “so government gets to define two committed peoples’ relationship?  Why would any couple accept that?”

If it’s about showing society who’s boss?

Continuing Abasement

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

To keep our law licenses, Minnesota lawyers must take mandatory training in Eliminating Gender Bias in the Legal Profession, generally “taught” by women lawyers and judges. My most recent session was a disappointment. When a man pays good money to be insulted and humiliated by a powerful woman, she should be wearing fishnet.

Joe Doakes

Como Park

When I got divorced, law required people to take a “co-parenting” class – which amounted to a couple of very angry women telling the guys in the room they’d better not skip out on their kids.  The cherry on the sundae?  My particular session was held at a “women’s center” in Minneapolis, where the guys all got glowered at by large women in Doc Martens as we walked to the bathroom.

I only had to do that once, though.  Every couple of years?  That’d get old.

Chanting Points Memo: The Potemkin Push

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With much fanfare, a few DFL figureheads are introducing a gay marriage bill:

“Minnesotans spoke so loudly during this last election refusing to adopt that proposed constitutional amendment. It was a very clear statement, and I think we’re now ready to take the next step, and it means everything to our families.”

Surrounded by supporters, Clark and Sen. Scott Dibble, who was instrumental in the anti-amendment campaign, said their side is prepared to combat the flood of national money that’s been promised against the proposal.

I’ve been saying since the opening day of the session that the DFL was going to stall on gay marriage – and they have.

And they’ll continue to; even the DFL’s house PR organs (including the MinnPost, from which I quote) note that the DFL leadership is going very slow:

Although DFL leaders have said they personally support same-sex marriage, they haven’t been overly enthusiastic in discussing legislative action with the press.

This is echoed in fundraising letters being sent to gay marriage supporters; outstate DFLers, already alarmed by the DFL’s gun grabs and a DFL tax bill that is going over outstate like a Lindsay Lohan one-woman show in Branson, are queasy about the bill; they remember (even if the media doesn’t) that the Marriage Amendment passed, often convincingly, in most of Minnesota; it was stopped by cataclysmic turnout in the Metro.

Where, unlike greater Minnesota, the issue is a winner for the DFL.

My fearless prediction:  the DFL will introduce the bill with much fanfare (ok, that’s not a prediction, that’s what happened).  It’ll quietly die in committee.  And the Alliance for a Better Minnesota will send its flying monkeys out next year to spin the death as perfidy by a GOP caucus that, in fact, controls nothing.

Final scorecard:  those who prosper from low-information voters: 1.  Gays who wish to marry:  0.

And so it shall stay.

The New Victorians

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The media practices a little Pauline Kael syndrome on the gun issue in this piece, which notes the shocking conclusion that “women” – meaning in this case “wealthy liberal women from the most liberal city in the United States” – don’t like guns much.

And in so doing, we mark the rise of a new breed of victorians:

Gun violence is the kind  of issue, said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, “that has real potential to mobilize waves of women voters and waves of office-holders.”

“What’s different here is Newtown. That cut a lot of different ways to a lot of different women.”

Perhaps.

Smart women – smart guys, too – realized that the only real defense against evil with guns is good people with guns.

Dumb women?  And men…?

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., a member of the Congressional Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, is eager to get Congress on the record on gun issues. She supports tighter restrictions.

“If we can force votes on these bills on the floor of the House and the Senate, where everybody has to be on record, it’s going to make it very clear to a huge segment of the population — that being women — of where people stand. And I think that will inform the decisions people make at the ballot box,” said Speier.

Yes, Ms. Speier, by all means get those votes on the record.

Because women are the fastest growing segment in the gun-owning population.  Across racial, social, economic and political boundaries, women are buying guns and learning to shoot faster than men are (largely because guys are more likely to have already started).

And maybe in your ofay Bay Area district, a majority of women will snif and vote against the proles with the guns.

East of the Sierras?

The article does, however, cut to the heart of the anti-gun movement:

Behind the scenes, an influential network of female philanthropists based in San Francisco is working to make sure the issue remains prominent, particularly to women.

Shortly after the Newtown shooting, members of the 20-year-old San Francisco-based Women Donors Network began hearing from their 200 members, all of whom donate at least $25,000 a year to progressive causes and individuals and politicians.

Collectively, they contribute $150 million a year to various causes and politicians, the organization says.

And there’s your battle.

The Second Amendment movement is millions of Real Americans who turn out to rallies, testify at hearings, vote for Second Amendment candidates, and above all own guns without incident for their entire lives.

The Orcs?  A few obscenely wealthy crones who write big checks to astroturf groups like “Protect Minnesota” and the “Violence Policy Center”.

Did I say “Astroturf?”

Among the women’s organizations at the forefront of the issue is Moms Rising, the 1.1 million-member activist organization co-founded by Berkeley resident Joan Blades.

“Moms Rising” is a reboot of the “Million Mom March”, the group with “1.1 million members” (no doubt anyone that visits the website is counted as a “member”) that can never muster more than three “members” for an event in the Twin Cities.

Gun violence touches every neighborhood, said Moms Rising executive director Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner. Twice in the past year, her children’s private schools in Seattle have been on lockdown because of the threat of a person nearby brandishing a gun.

“We had a national awakening with the (Newtown shooting),” Rowe-Finkbeiner said. “It is something that a lot of women — and men — could relate to.”

And I love the imagery; a bunch of upper-middle-class crones who can write $25,000 checks and whose kids are snuggled into private schools trying to set the agenda for women in Chicago, on ranches in Montana, in North Minneapolis – many of whom are just starting to realize that gun bans don’t save people; people do.