{"id":1327,"date":"2007-09-20T07:38:02","date_gmt":"2007-09-20T12:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1327"},"modified":"2007-09-20T08:55:27","modified_gmt":"2007-09-20T13:55:27","slug":"huge-scoop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1327","title":{"rendered":"Huge Scoop!!!!!!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 <\/em>and many, many more, the City Pages <\/em>has always been the outlet that impressed the most with its commitment to digging for the story beneath the sound bite.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And this piece<\/a> – by Matt Snyders<\/font><\/a>\u00a0and Rhena Tantisunthorn<\/font><\/a>\u00a0– continues that glorious tradition.\u00a0 Snyders and Tantisunthorn tackle Katherine Kersten – the Twin Cities’ only <\/em>conservative general columnist:<\/p>\n

If we learned nothing else last week, we at least discovered that Katherine Kersten is most definitely not a closeted lesbian.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is, indeed, good to get the basic facts straight.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The ghost of Edward R. Murrow just got a shiver up his spine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

“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.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The nerve <\/em>of that woman!\u00a0 Having an opinion!<\/p>\n

Doesn’t Katherine Kersten know she’s a woman! <\/em>She’s supposed to shut up and parrot the opinions handed to her by the DFL!<\/em><\/p>\n

But no matter.\u00a0 Snynder and Tantisunthorn\u00a0are on fa-yah!<\/em> They’re going to round the home stretch and go for the big finish<\/em>!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Y’know – the part where they make the big stick<\/em>!\u00a0 Where the story draws blood<\/em>!<\/p>\n

Strap in!\u00a0 Here we go!<\/p>\n

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\u2014three states whose divorce rates are also among the highest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Booyah!\u00a0 There we…go…<\/p>\n

…er…<\/p>\n

Huh?<\/p>\n

Um…<\/p>\n

OK.<\/p>\n

For starters – what’s with the weasel words?\u00a0 “Among?”\u00a0 Well, who else is “Among” the leaders and trailers in divorce<\/a>?\u00a0\u00a0 Nevada leads the nation!\u00a0 But Nevada also leads the nation in marriages<\/a>!\u00a0 That’s because people go to Nevada to get married and divorced, <\/em>frequently by Elvis Presley or Little Richard.<\/p>\n

But that has nothing to do with Snyders and Tantisunthorn’s thesis does it?<\/p>\n

Of course it does.\u00a0 The “Bible Belt” leads the nation in divorces, while the Northeast has the lowest divorce rates.<\/p>\n

Do you suppose, perhaps, that there might be a correlating difference in the marriage rates<\/em> in the two regions?<\/p>\n

Well, Snynders and Tantisunthorn\u00a0sure won’t tell you.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But I will<\/a>\u00a0(or read the report in PDF format<\/a>).\u00a0 There’s a correlation between marriage rates and divorce rates.<\/p>\n

It should go without saying that they don’t bother explaining what the negative correlation between gay marriage and divorce might be.\u00a0 Because there is no direct (or inverse) correlation.\u00a0 It’s a strawman; its appearance in the occasionally-excellent City Pages is just a further sign of the Stewart-ization of the left’s alt-media.<\/p>\n

The City Pages; <\/em>still giving you the convenient half of the story after all these years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}