Among the Twin Cities’ long list of weekly boutique freebie ‘zines, past and long past and present, like the Twin Cities Reader, Vita.mn, , Vake.mn, Nightbeat, Cake, Rake, Flake, Hake, Pulse, Fulse and many, many more, the City Pages has always been the outlet that impressed the most with its commitment to digging for the story beneath the sound bite. 

And this piece – by Matt Snyders and Rhena Tantisunthorn – continues that glorious tradition.  Snyders and Tantisunthorn tackle Katherine Kersten – the Twin Cities’ only conservative general columnist:

If we learned nothing else last week, we at least discovered that Katherine Kersten is most definitely not a closeted lesbian.

It is, indeed, good to get the basic facts straight.

In her latest mind-bending screed to appear in the Strib (“As Iowa Shows, a Marriage Law Isn’t Enough”), conservative apologist Kersten warned readers that Minnesota might need to pass an amendment banning gay marriage, lest we wind up like our cornpone, corn-holing neighbors to the south.

The ghost of Edward R. Murrow just got a shiver up his spine. 

And what was “mind-bending” about Kersten – who, have I mentioned, is the only conservative columnist actually employed by a Twin Cities newspaper?

“Many folks in our state believe that heterosexual marriage is a bedrock social institution,” writes the man-loving, obviously straight Kersten. “It connects fathers and mothers to their children and provides an essential framework for reconciling men’s and women’s sometimes different but complementary needs.”

The nerve of that woman!  Having an opinion!

Doesn’t Katherine Kersten know she’s a woman! She’s supposed to shut up and parrot the opinions handed to her by the DFL!

But no matter.  Snynder and Tantisunthorn are on fa-yah! They’re going to round the home stretch and go for the big finish! 

Y’know – the part where they make the big stick!  Where the story draws blood!

Strap in!  Here we go!

But while Kersten was distracted by the full-frontal gay attack on heterosexual marriage, she missed the bigger threat from the rear. Among the states she applauds for defending marriage in their constitutions are Kentucky, Mississippi, and Arkansas—three states whose divorce rates are also among the highest.

Booyah!  There we…go…

…er…

Huh?

Um…

OK.

For starters – what’s with the weasel words?  “Among?”  Well, who else is “Among” the leaders and trailers in divorce?   Nevada leads the nation!  But Nevada also leads the nation in marriages!  That’s because people go to Nevada to get married and divorced, frequently by Elvis Presley or Little Richard.

But that has nothing to do with Snyders and Tantisunthorn’s thesis does it?

Of course it does.  The “Bible Belt” leads the nation in divorces, while the Northeast has the lowest divorce rates.

Do you suppose, perhaps, that there might be a correlating difference in the marriage rates in the two regions?

Well, Snynder and Tantisunthorn sure won’t tell you. 

But I will (or read the report in PDF format).

It should go without saying that they don’t bother explaining what the negative correlation between gay marriage and divorce might be.  Because there is no direct correlation.

The City Pages; still giving you the convenient half of the story after all these years.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 6:05 am and is filed under Culture War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.