Tag: Minnesota

Posted on

Minnesota Vikings Chris Kluwe defends Brendon Ayanbadejo against bigoted Maryland lawmaker

Minnesota Vikings Chris Kluwe

Minnesota Viking punter Chris Kluwe is an advocate for LGBT rights and marriage equality. He has recorded three radio ads for Minnesotans for Equality, the group fighting a November ballot that would constitutionally define marriage as opposite sex only.

Now, Kluwe has written an open letter to Maryland lawmaker Emmett C. Burns, who this week urged Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti to silence Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo from speaking his mind on gay rights.

Said Burns in his letter: “I am requesting that you take the necessary action, as a National Football League Owner, to inhibit such expressions from your employees and that he be ordered to cease and desist such injurious actions. I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbadejo is doing.”

Here’s the closing part of Kluwe’s letter, published in full on Deadspin:

I can assure you that gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life. They won’t come into your house and steal your children. They won’t magically turn you into a lustful cockmonster. They won’t even overthrow the government in an orgy of hedonistic debauchery because all of a sudden they have the same legal rights as the other 90 percent of our population—rights like Social Security benefits, child care tax credits, Family and Medical Leave to take care of loved ones, and COBRA healthcare for spouses and children.

You know what having these rights will make gays? Full-fledged American citizens just like everyone else, with the freedom to pursue happiness and all that entails. Do the civil-rights struggles of the past 200 years mean absolutely nothing to you?

In closing, I would like to say that I hope this letter, in some small way, causes you to reflect upon the magnitude of the colossal foot in mouth clusterf*ck you so brazenly unleashed on a man whose only crime was speaking out for something he believed in. Best of luck in the next election; I’m fairly certain you might need it.

Sincerely,
Chris Kluwe

P.S. I’ve also been vocal as hell about the issue of gay marriage so you can take your “I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbadejo is doing” and shove it in your close-minded, totally lacking in empathy piehole and choke on it. A**hole.

Read Kluwe’s full letter HERE.

Ayanbadejo says of Mr. Burns that he’d “have to thank him more than anything for bringing national attention to the issue,” USA Today reports.

Ayanbadejo expressed surprise that Burns was trying to remove someone’s free speech rights: “For somebody to try to take that away from me I was pretty surprised, from a politician especially. People get fired for saying the things that the delegate said. People lose their jobs for discrimination…I think that whoever voted for him has their right to vote for who they believe represents their values. And if he represents their values, he’s the best person for the job. If Obama represents the best values for the country, he deserves the job.”

Added Ayanbadejo: “Its an equality issue. I see the big picture.”

Posted on

New campaign for marriage equality – The Four 2012

New campaign to support the marriage equality issues in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington. Check it out at www.TheFour2012.com

From the website: Anti-gay and anti-human rights organizations in our country are mobilizing – putting vast sums of money and resources into all four states to defeat us. In the past, despite great polls – we have lost ballot initiatives. Our opposition is organized and well-funded. But we have what they don’t – we’re fighting for love, not against it.

Every day there will be another way to stand for marriage equality. You can sign up for updates with the FOUR and new ways to fight for marriage equality every day between now and the election.

Posted on

Catholics for Marriage Equality release video singing for marriage equality

Learning lessons from the passage of Prop 8 in California, Minnesotans United for All Families has worked to build a coalition of inclusive congregations willing to stand up for marriage equality so the campaign is more broad-based and lines of communication are formed between advocates and the faith community.

Sponsored by Catholics for Marriage Equality, the purpose was to create a music video of the hymn, “For All the Children.” The video will be used during the current campaign to defeat the proposed constitutional amendment which would make marriage equality forever illegal in the state of Minnesota.

People of faith gathered at Calvary Lutheran Church in Minneapolis “to give voice to their faith, their hope and their conscience,” an introduction to the video explains.

Take a listen.  And thank you Catholics for Marriage Equality for having the courage to stand up for equality.

Posted on

Minnesota: New TV spot released supporting rights of gays to marry

Very sweet and viewer friendly TV spot released in Minnesota by Freedom To Marry. I think it’s terrific that it shows everyday people – straight people – see the logic and compassion in allowing gays to marry.

I also love that it’s pointed out the man is one of our nation’s veterans. He even mentions he fought for ALL Americans to share the same rights and freedoms. My father was a veteran of two wars and he felt the same way.

On November 6, Minnesota voters must decide on a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that would constitutionally ban same-sex couples from marrying. Same-sex couples are already excluded from marriage through a state statute passed in 1997.

More at FreedomTomMarry.org

Posted on

“Close Enough” by War Poets

Via press release:

Directed by Toni Trussoni and produced by Chris Bueckers, the music video for “Close Enough” brings the controversial issue of gay marriage to life.

Archival footage and still photographs are sprinkled throughout, showing a pro-gay rally one minute and an anti-gay demonstration the next. The story is set in New York’s Greenwich Village, home of the Stonewall Inn, where the 1969 riots culminated in the first Gay Pride Parade. The video is dedicated to the memory of the Stonewall uprisings.

Trussoni’s choices of locations were both idyllic St Paul and upscale Minneapolis, and St John the Evangelist Episcopal Church — a gorgeous building in St Paul, MN, not far from the band’s Minneapolis headquarters — serves as the location where both couples finally get married.

“This is the first time that I have worked on a project with gay couples as the focal point,” Bueckers explains. “It was a challenge. Some people would not work on the project because of the subject matter, and I was a little taken aback by that. The film community is usually very open and progressive about the topic of gay rights.”

War Poets is a Minneapolis-based band that will release their debut album,  Dulce et Decorum Est around October 1, 2012.

Minnesota is facing a constitutional amendment measure that could ban marriage equality this November.

For more on the band, click here.

Posted on

Human Rights Campaign to donate $1 million to marriage equality fight

The Human Rights Campaign is sending $250,000 apiece to Maine, Washington, Maryland, and Minnesota to help with same-sex marriage ballot measures in each of those states, Politico reports:

Officials said there will be more spending coming, and that it makes the total spent by HRC in 2011 and 2012 on marriage-related efforts to $4.8 million.

“These ballot measures are the critical issues in November for our community, besides re-electing the president” and a small handful of specific races, said HRC’s Michael Cole-Schwartz. “And part of why they’re a big deal is because our opponents have rightfully had the talking points that all of these states have banned marriage for same-sex couples (in the past).”

Maine is the only state with a ballot measure that would legalize same-sex marriage.

Washington and Maryland are fighting repeals of laws passed in 2011.

Minnesota is battling a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage.

Posted on

Minnesota: The good guys raise 6x more than anti-gay group

Opponents of the Minnesota constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage have raised six times as much money as the amendment’s supporters so far this year.
Minnesotans United for All Families, which is working against the amendment, raised about $3.8 million from January 1 to July 10, according to financial documents filed with the state this week, theAssociated Press reports. The measure’s backing group, Minnesota for Marriage, brought in just $620,000 in that period. The two groups’ total fund-raising amounts to $5.4 million and $1.5 million respectively.
Posted on

Reuters announces opposition to anti-gay Minnesota amendment

Thomson Reuters is the latest company to announce that it’s opposing Minnesota’s proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

In an e-mail to employees, the highest two ranking executives headquartered in Minnesota (Mike Suchsland, President of Thomson Reuters Legal, and Rick King, COO, Technology) wrote that the amendment would hurt their ability to attract employees to work in Minnesota. Thompson Reuters is headquartered in New York and Westlaw, formerly West Publishing, is a subsidiary in Eagan.

“We believe the Minnesota Marriage Amendment, if passed, would limit our ability to recruit and retain top talent,” the e-mail said. “For this reason, we do not believe that the Amendment would be good for Thomson Reuters or the business community in the state.”

Thomson Reuters has 7,900 employees in Minnesota. In the e-mail, company officials also noted that the company’s position is a “business decision” and that “as a news organization, Thomson Reuters is dedicated to upholding our Trust Principles and does not advocate political or religious positions.”

The company’s announcement comes just weeks after General Mills announced that it would oppose the amendment. It has also sparked a debate over whether the amendment would hurt or help the state’s business climate.