Meet Paul Gazelka. He’s the Republican State senator from Minnesota who has decided to make it his personal mission to try and pass a religious freedom bill in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
“I was one of the legislators who opposed gay marriage, but even then I said that gays and lesbians should be able to live as they choose,” Gazelka (pictured) recently said. “I’m simply asking that Christians and people of faith be allowed to live as they choose without … threat of punishment.”
Gazelka’s bill would grant small business owners the legal right to deny services for same-sex weddings on religious grounds. It comes in response to venue that had to pay a fine last year after being found guilty of breaking the law when it refused to host a same-sex wedding.
Related: Five Ways That Indiana’s Antigay Law Actually Made Things Better For Us
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Naturally, gay rights activists aren’t happy about Gazelka’s proposed bill.
“We see this as an attack on the freedom to marry for same-sex couples,” said Monica Meyer, executive director of the gay-rights organization OutFront. “Providing a commercial service doesn’t mean that the religious owner is endorsing any of their customers at all. They’re just providing a commercial service.”
She added: “Our country always does better when we treat people equally.”
State Sen. Scott Dibble, who sponsored the state’s law legalizing same-sex marriage in 2013, called Gazelka’s measure a “stink bomb.”
“It’s unfortunate he’s putting a stink bomb right in front of the Legislature at this point in the session,” Dibble said.
Related: INTERVIEW: Scott Dibble Says Anti-Gay Republicans Are Helping Create Marriage Equality
Even top Republican leaders are keeping their distance from the bill. Evidently, they, unlike Gazelka, learned a thing or two from the fallout that happened in Indiana when lawmakers there passed a similar bill earlier this year.
House Speaker Kurt Daudt said he didn’t “know the first thing about” Gazelka’s bill, and Senate Minority Leader David Hann said he agrees “with the concept” of protecting the rights of people opposed to same-sex marriage but hadn’t yet “looked at the text” of the proposal.
But before you get too worked up, don’t. The bill doesn’t have a chance in hell of ever passing. Minnesota is a solid blue state with a Democratic governor. Gazelka is just wasting everyone’s time, and tarnishing his reputation in the process.
drumstick
This is likely a case of a state senator pandering to a local church in his district…
SteveDenver
Gazeka has to go up against one of the most popular governors in the nation: Mark Dayton, a Democrat who raised taxes on the rich, raised the minimum wage, and now presides over one of the most robust state economies in the nation. Dayton has almost total bipartisan support in the state legislature.
Minnesota already knows the high cost of being bigoted. During the Dot.Com boom, Minneapolis exploded with new business and residents. Meanwhile, St. Paul — just over the bridge — had a city council that opposed partner benefits for gay and lesbian employees, would not support an Equal Housing proposal for the city, and did not support a Pride celebration. Nobody wanted to live there and business languished even as Minneapolis had a shortage of commercial and residential space. Two years later, St. Paul voters kicked out the city council and voted in equality-minded representation. The city turned around and enjoyed great growth.
Xzamilio
“I was one of the legislators who opposed gay marriage, but even then I said that gays and lesbians should be able to live as they choose,” Gazelka (pictured) recently said. “I’m simply asking that Christians and people of faith be allowed to live as they choose without … threat of punishment.”
Is he serious?? So not only will he vote against gays and lesbians living as they choose, he’ll then try to claim victimhood and say that Christians are the ones living under “threat of punishment”?
http://shallowvoices.blogspot.com/2014/01/religious-homophobia-not-tolerating.html
This is precisely why religious nonsense like this needs to be unacceptable. It is ridiculous the special out we give woo woo bullshit because it’s a “sincerely held religious belief.”
Michael Finnegan
This is how…
Rob Ridings
Relax. Even your own article says it has no chance of passing. That’s the benefit of having a Dem Governor. If only my state of NC could be so lucky…..
Giancarlo85
No chance, but most Republicans are in favor of it. Minnesota is swinging more strongly Democrat.
Eric Carr
ooh god! lol
Dakotahgeo
There’s always one turd in every chocolate tart!
Luis H. Lopez
William Clements
Texas is working in one too.
IvanPH
If the bill does not have a chance in hell of passing then why the exaggerated and over-hyped title, Queerty?
martinbakman
There is a reason that state is home to so many recovery centers, they sent Michelle Bachman to Congress and the state bird is the loon.
MinnesotaNotNice
I’m very happy to see that the vast majority of Minnesota legislators are ignoring this idiot and his proposed bill. I think even Gazelka knows that it would have a snowball’s chance in hell of passing, but he has his base of right wing haters that he feels the need to pander to by being a big man and coming up with this garbage. We’ve learned a lot up here after the term of our last Republican governor, Tim Pawlenty. Mark Dayton has not been perfect, but alongside Tim Pawlenty, he’s damn near Svengali-like.