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<\/a><\/p>\nYesterday, if you were at the Capitol, you saw a Madison-like outpouring of support for gay rights and opposition to the Amendment. \u00a0And by “Madison-like”, I mean “largely Metrocratic”.<\/p>\n
But while I’m ambivalent about gay marriage (I support civil unions, but don’t plan on ever getting a government marriage license, even if I do <\/em>get married ever again), I think there is one uncontrovertible fact; the DFL’s motivations in opposing the Amendment were purely, and just a tad cynically, political.<\/p>\n Call From Pauline Kael<\/strong>: \u00a0The left’s approach on gay marriage, thus far, has been to get it instituted by fiat, either by politicians (former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsome) or the courts. \u00a0It’s a fact that gay marriage has never <\/em>passed a public referendum, not even in “progressive” cesspools like Oregan.<\/p>\n But there are polls that indicate that people are changing their tune; that people actually support gay marriage.<\/p>\n So is the landscape changing? \u00a0It depends on the polls you believe, of course; I’ve seen surveys of likely voters \u00a0that indicate most Minnesotans oppose it; there are others, of course. \u00a0We’ll see – in November, 2012. \u00a0I strongly suspect most people do<\/em>, in fact, oppose gay marriage because…<\/p>\n What Happened In 2009?<\/strong> Last night, during the Madison-like surge of lefty outrage on Twitter, a “progressive” sniffed at me:<\/p>\n Sir- the agenda is Rights. DFL Benson: My conscious comes first, my constituents second, and my desire to be reelected, third.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Which makes a good chanting point. \u00a0But it doesn’t stand up to history.<\/p>\n Four years ago,the DFL took control of the government in Saint Paul. \u00a0Two years ago, the DFL had\u00a0absolute <\/em>control of Minnesota government, except for Governor Pawlenty.\u00a0\u00a0Had they wanted to push a gay marriage law, they could have. \u00a0It would have been vetoed – but they’d have made their moral case to take to the voters.<\/p>\n And don’t forget that they could <\/em>have \u00a0passed a constitutional amendment, as the GOP just did, and bypassed the Governor completely.<\/p>\n And yet they dawdled for four years, and made no <\/em>significant effort toward Gay Marriage. \u00a0None. Zero.<\/p>\n If the DFL’s stance were “about civil rights”, about immutable libertarian principles, as Rep. Benson grandiloquently claimed, they’d have used their absolute majority to do something<\/em>,<\/p>\n Contrast that to the GOP, which introduced the Constitutional Amendment immediately.<\/p>\n Leaving aside whether it’s good to vote on civil rights or <\/em>whether Gay Marriage is a civil right, here’s a question: which is the stance of a party that believes that they are going to win a referendum?<\/p>\n I suspect the DFL ignored gay marriage (and their gay supporters) for four years because they knew the votes weren’t there throughout Minnesota; that if they voted for <\/em>legislation pushing gay marriage, they’d get shredded statewide. \u00a0 They’d be kissing any outstate seats goodbye; they’d shave some of their majority in the Arrowhead and <\/em>in the Twin Cities; few people oppose Gay Marriage less than Afro-Americans and Latinos; they might even jeopardize Tim Walz’ seat.<\/p>\n My thesis – this was never about principles, about liberty, about fairness for gays. \u00a0This is about votes. \u00a0The DFL believes they’ll lose them – lots of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I’ve pointed out in the past, I’m deeply ambivalent about pretty much everything in the Gay Marriage mix; gay marriage itself, sure, but straight marriage too, and amending the constitution to protect it as well. Yesterday, if you were at the Capitol, you saw a Madison-like outpouring of support for gay rights and opposition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,24,29,144,27,2,155],"tags":[160,154],"class_list":["post-20190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chanting-points-memo","category-culture-war","category-family-law","category-governor","category-men-and-women","category-minnesota-politics","category-mn-congressional","tag-mn-cd1","tag-pawlenty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20190","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=20190"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27335,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20190\/revisions\/27335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}