STATE OF THE UNIONS

MN Senate Committee Passes Marriage Equality Bill, Despite Some Truly Asinine Testimony

The Minnesota State Senate Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday to advance a marriage-equality measure to the full Senate by a margin of 5-3.

“This is truly a historic day for Minnesota and a victory for all Minnesotans,” said Minnesotans United campaign manager Richard Carlbom. “What the Senate Judiciary members proved today – and what we heard from numerous testifiers who spoke passionately in support of this legislation – is that marriage is defined by the love, commitment and responsibility that two people share.”

But it wasn’t just people who supported the bill who testified before the committee—foes of equality had their day in the sun, too. And some of them would’ve been better off staying under a rock:

Mike Frey, a “concerned Minnesotan and father and a husband,” schooled the committee on how unprotected vaginal sex cannot transmit HIV (because the vagina has a protective barrier) and that AIDS is spontaneously caused by unprotected anal sex between gay men.

See for yourself:

…When there is ejaculation into a vagina, there is a barrier there, as in your packet it states there, of a cellular tissue that doesn’t allow the sperm — that has an enzyme at the head of it, to penetrate the blood flow. It is designed to go to the egg — that enzyme is designed to burn the outside membrane of the egg cell — go inside the egg, and then deposit the DNA. We call that conception.

When ejaculation occurs inside of a colon it is a highly absorbent material, the cells do not have a barrier for the sperm and those enzymes to enter into the blood flow. When the enzymes enter into the blood flow and a continued, prolonged, um, environment to that happens these enzymes into blood flow it causes what we know as AIDS — acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

AIDS of course brings on common diseases, colds and things, and it magnifies them to a point where it’s unhealthy. Not only does it strengthen the disease within the carrier of AIDS — the person that has a destroyed immune system — but it also strengthens the disease that can be spread to the society at large.

On the other side of the spectrum was touching testimony from former state Rep. Lynne Osterman, who choked up as she explained how she regretted voting for a ban on same-sex marriage back in the 1990s.

“I blew my vote. I didn’t come to Saint Paul to single out same-sex couples and their families, but in my only term as a member. I cast a politically expedient vote in favor of DOMA and I regretted that ever since. It was not in my conscience, or my own compass.”

Nothing in my life says it’s okay to treat people differently than how I would want to be treated–fairly, respectfully, equally. And that’s really what this conversation is about. Whether you believe in big government or small, do you believe in fair? Respectful? Equal? Is it ever okay to say, well, except for those people?

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