Is geography destiny?
Out here in Senate District 18 (McLeod, Meeker and Sibley County), voters favored the amendment to restrict marriage that was defeated in November, but editors in two of the area's newspapers are split about the merit of the marriage equality bill.
Litchfield Independent Review editor Andrew Broman seems to write from right-center in Democrats spring gay marriage trap:
Last fall, Minnesota Republicans miscalculated with two Constitutional amendments, one aimed at attacking same-sex marriages and another at complicating the election process. On this page, I’ve blasted Republicans for pushing the Voter ID amendment. It was antithetical to democracy and mainly promised to burden local municipalities.
It is now time to address this issue of gay marriage — an issue that threatens to sink the Republican Party just when the party’s fiscally conservative wing is needed most. Without fiscal conservatives guiding the Legislature, the result is what Gov. Mark Dayton recently proposed — a budget loaded with new spending and taxes.
Democrats, witnessing Republicans trip over themselves in the last election, cannot resist the temptation to put the party flat on its face again. . . .
. . .At this point, it’s pointless to debate the morality of gay marriage. But that’s exactly what Democrats want Republicans to continue doing. Democrats want Republicans to quote Leviticus and various obscure Biblical passages and declare the immorality of same-sex couples. Publicly condemning gay marriage functions as a de facto get-out-the-vote campaign for Democrats.
I’m not asking Republicans to do an about-face and suddenly declare gay marriage to be morally equal to heterosexual marriages. But they should recall Thaddeus Stevens and start thinking about marriage as a legal issue, not a moral one.
When people go to city hall or courthouse to get a marriage license, there’s nothing sacred about it. A municipal or county clerk files marriage licenses with the same hand that files property deeds, demolition permits, county board minutes, etc. In the eyes of the state, marriage is a contract between two consenting parties. If two guys or two women want the same legal rights granted to heterosexual couples, such as Social Security survivor’s benefits, they deserve that right — for legal reasons alone.
The proper forum for arguing against the morality of gay marriage is church. The state has an interest in the institution, but marriage mainly belongs to church. The more distance Republicans can place between themselves and gay marriage, the better able they will be to focus on what truly matters: fiscal and monetary policy.
In more than a decade writing for newspapers, I’ve never written a column about gay rights. I have no problem with same-sex couples getting hitched, but the issue isn’t a priority for me. It is, however, a priority for many of my 30-something cohorts, who otherwise favor low taxes and reduced spending.
. . . In surrendering on the gay marriage battlefront, conservatives will grow stronger on other battlefronts. While some social conservatives might accuse Republicans of being traitors, the party will be doing itself a favor in the long run, as it gains new allies and rediscovers the true meaning of conservatism.
It's worth the time to read the whole thing. Remember, state representative Glenn "No Gay Gene" Gruenhagen serves in the other half of the state senate district. Indeed, in the Glencoe newspaper, the McLeod County Chronicle, editor Rich Glennie argues against the marriage equality bill on moral terms in On same-sex marriage, gun-control, the voting blocks have changed.
For Glennie, morality and geography trump demography:
Although it has always been there, the current legislative session may make it even more apparent. On some issues, the Legislature is almost as divided along geographic lines as political lines. It is becoming metro legislators vs. outstate legislators on several key bills. . . .
While poll after poll in the big-city newspapers indicate Minnesotans and Americans are warming to the idea of same-sex marriage, that is not what we hear in rural legislative districts. Instead, bedrock family values and religous beliefs still hold sway in outstate Minnesota. Prior to these two social issues was the school funding equity fight that often pitted metro vs. rural legislators in both parties.
Perhaps the traditional political party affiliations are taking on less meaning as more complex issues arise. But if it is indeed evolving into the metro vs. rural split, the rural representatives will be on the losing end.
Statistics don’t lie, the majority of Minnesotans reside in the metro area, and they have the majority of votes in the Legislature. That is the reality of politics in Minnesota and will be for the foreseeable future.
The only hope is that those metro legislators who grew up in rural Minnesota still remember what traditional values are all about.
Doubtless, Representative Gruenhagen will take those as encouraging words and continue to lead the charge. Bluestem suspects that Broman's prediction of the consequences of this are dead on.
Photo: Glenn Gruenhagen, front and center at another marriage inequality meeting.
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