Tink’s in Love
Katie performed a rare double today, although she didn’t break any new ground doing it. And of course, Tink gushes about it. Da Wege speculates that Tink might have a special place in his calcified little heart for Katie:
Maybe Katherine Kersten can explain all this away in her next column... [BTW, has anyone told Mrs. Big TCF about her hubby and Katherine yet?]
Who knows? Stranger things have happened. Well, maybe not.
Katie’s first trick was her column in the Strib today taunting Democrats with what are you afraid of? Let us vote on the gay marriage ban amendment. The Democrats who have kept this bottled up are not afraid of anything, you twit; they are the most courageous people in the Legislature, as Lori Sturdevant (you know Lori, don’t you Katie?) said in a recent column. Even Lori thinks you’re trying to give the state a wedgie, in spite of your protestation to the contrary.
Boys and girls, did you know that Katie gave over $1,800 to George Bush and the Minnesota Republicans in the 2004 election cycle? Yup; just go to www.opensecrets.org to check it out. Spotty says you have to take what a partisan hack like Katie says about wedge issues with a grain, nay a shaker, of salt. Actually, it is a good idea to take anything Katie says with a shaker of salt - and everything else that Jimmy Buffet says ought to go with it.
We don’t vote on a gay marriage amendment, dear Katie, for the same reason we don’t vote on racial discrimination or discrimination against, say, Catholics. It’s the civil rights, stupid. One of the enduring, Spot hopes, and maybe the most prominent, feature of the legal system in these United States is the enshrinement of equal protection under law. The principal genius of the Constitution is the promotion of democratic principles, in a republican form of government, with protections afforded to unpopular minorities against the prejudices of the majority, especially as fanned by whatever demagogue (think Katie here, boys and girls) that might come along.
The notion of equal protection evolves as we learn things, like the fact that homosexuality is something you are born with. Just like civil rights are things you are born with, not subject to Mother Katie Knows Best. Spot doesn’t claim to understand homosexuality, but then he doesn’t understand being black or a woman, either. But he’s prepared to believe they are viable options.
Last week at pre-session meeting with constituents, Minnesota Senator Geoff Michel, a supporter of the gay marriage amendment ban, said he thought that Minnesotans were ready to accept civil unions for gays, but not marriage. But Michele Bachmann’s bill last year – and which passed the Minnesota House - would ban civil unions, too.
Look, nobody is saying to the stiff-necked evangelicals that they ought to marry gays in their church if they don’t want to. But what needs to be remembered is that the franchise to marry people – legally, anyway – comes from the state, not the church. It may be a holy estate, but if you don’t get the license from the state and get married by an authorized official, you ain’t married. The church can’t grant divorces, either.
It is, therefore, a fundamental denial of equal protection under law to deny all of the incidents to a union between persons – yes, two of them, Katie – health care decision-making, inheritance, health insurance benefits, pension benefits, etc. and etc., on the basis of the sex of the partners. That defies Katie’s notion of the conventional, but undoubtedly the end of slavery or the grant of voting rights to women defied a lot of people’s notion of the conventional, too.
Katie’s second trick was a column in the WSJ’s Opinion Journal. The Wall Street Journal opinion editors are about the only group nuttier than Katie! In the column, Katie rehashes the most recent installment in her urination on the Minneapolis Public School system. Spot posted about it in Fact and fiction, part two. Katie’s repeats her quotes of the not-exactly-unimpeachable Louis King and extols charter schools.
The money bled off of the public school system (because of the fact that most school funding is allocated per-pupil) by the charter school system is one of the principal reasons that Minneapolis has had such a difficult time financially. And the state may have already cooked its own goose by failing to provide a uniform system of public schools. The lawsuit is ripe for the bringing.
Tags: Katherine Kersten gay marriage Geoff Michel Michele Bachmann Minneapolis Public Schools
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