Demonstrators against Proposition 8 at a downtown Minneapolis rally in November 2008. (Tony Webster, Flickr)

Same-sex marriage will again be a hot topic in the state Legislature this year, and some new initiatives are sure to create controversy. But for a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community that has been playing defense against social conservatives for more than a decade, the 2009 legislature will be the friendliest in years, some lawmakers say.

Nonetheless the community’s confidence is tempered by an awareness that opponents of marriage equality are more determined than ever to defeat any advances made in the Capitol. In particular, the continuing partnership between Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the religious right could spell doom for pro-equality initiatives.

Perhaps the boldest move at the Capitol this year will be the proposal of a Marriage and Family Protection Act, which would change Minnesota statutes to allow same-sex couples to marry.

A new group, Marriage Equality Minnesota, has pushed for the bill’s introduction. Even with a vast majority of DFLers in the legislature, Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, is aware of the steep challenges in getting the bill to the governor’s desk.

“This effort is made with no illusion about the difficulty of passing the legislation,” said Marty, who will introduce the bill in the coming session.

The bill’s most important function will be to generate a discussion, he added.

“Opponents have great fear and misunderstanding about gay marriage,” Marty said. “A legislative committee hearing could begin to address those misconceptions.”

Marty first introduced the bill in the final days of the 2008 legislative session, and the proposal did not leave committee. OutFront Minnesota, the state’s largest LGBT advocacy organization, disagreed with the timing of the bill and was not involved in its introduction.

This year, however, Marty’s bill is part of OutFront’s legislative agenda, among other initiatives to bring relief for LGBT families.

OutFront is also working on an anti-bullying bill, dubbed Safe Schools for All.

Jo Mariscano, communications director for OutFront, said the measure “would require school districts to incorporate into their harassment/bullying policies characteristics currently not required by law to be included: sexual orientation/gender expression and identity; physical characteristics; and disability.”

Another group is working on educating legislators and the public, rather than on specific pieces of legislation.

Project 515 is canvassing the state to inform Minnesotans about the 515 statutes currently on the books that discriminate against same-sex couples.

When a same-sex partner dies, for example, the surviving partner has no right to be notified and does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to the body. If one partner dies, the state can seize the couple’s home, whereas for married couples, the home is protected.

Even fishing and hunting licenses offer discounts to married couples. Same-sex couples cannot take advantage of those state discounts.

But at least one group wants to prevent any inequalities from being addressed. The Minnesota Family Council promised to be a prominent voice at the Capitol again in 2009.

In 2008, Gov. Pawlenty hand-picked the Family Council to negotiate with bill sponsors on issues important to the LGBT community, such as comprehensive sex education.

This year, the Council’s anti-equality arguments for the current session have already begun.

In an opinion piece printed in the Duluth News Tribune on Monday, Family Council President Tom Prichard slammed efforts to achieve equality. “Traditional marriage does not discriminate against people based on sexual orientation,” he wrote.

The alternative for gays and lesbians wanting to marry, he suggests, is to stop being gay or lesbian, find God and marry a heterosexual.

Meanwhile, the Family Council is counting on Pawlenty to stop any equality measure from moving forward this year and has begun fundraising to defeat Sen. Marty’s bill.

Just before the new year began, the Council sent out an e-mail to supporters that read, “Consider this: with the help of Gov. Pawlenty and our grassroots base, MFC/MFI has stopped all legislative attempts to legalize homosexual ‘marriage’ and marriage-like benefits. Help us stop it again … The time is now. If every family on our email list donated $10, we would be financially equipped to protect God’s plan for marriage in the 2009 legislative session.”

Photo: Tony Webster

Roland Burris, Jan. 5, 2009: “The Lord put his hands on the governor and said, ‘This is the person that has to go to Washington.’”

Michele Bachmann, Oct. 14, 2006: “He called me to run for United States Congress”

“Our nation and new president will be challenged by ongoing wars, an economy in severe recession, ballooning deficits, high unemployment and an environment and health care system in crisis,” wrote the Rev. Michael Tegeder of St. Edward’s Church in Bloomington. “Yet at this very moment the Catholic bishops have declared that they have this more pressing need.”

That need is to organize a postcard campaign targeting legislators and Obama over abortion legislation.

FOCA will stir a heated debate in upcoming months. Obama pledged to sign it if Congress passes it. “The first thing I’d do, as president, is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing that I’d do,” he told Planned Parenthood supporters at a campaign event in 2007.

FOCA would essentially codify the reproductive rights that were interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade.

The bill reads:

“A government may not deny or interfere with a woman’s right to choose to bear a child, to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability, or to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman; or discriminate against the exercise of the rights set forth in paragraph in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.”

Tegeder penned his opinion in a letter to the Star Tribune, targeting the bishops’ intent to pressure Obama on FOCA. Tegeder said that among the many problems with the postcard campaign, the bishops are attacking Obama instead of finding common ground.

“We can do many positive things. Indeed, Obama has stated that he wants to reduce the number of abortions. We should work with him on doing this,” Tegeder wrote. “During this season of goodwill, let us offer our new president some and hold back on the confrontation. And to the bishops: Your Graces, remember grace.”

Tegeder’s words directly confront his boss, the Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, John Neinstedt.

“When I signed up 35 years ago to be a priest, little did I realize that postcards would be an essential tool of ministry in the Catholic Church,” said Tegeder. He pointed to Neinstedt and his postcard campaigns pushing a Republican-led same-sex marriage ban several years ago.

“To someone who did not see this as necessary, it seemed a waste of time and money. It also generated some unnecessary ill will,” wrote Tegeder.

Neinstedt recently weighed in on the FOCA debate and seems to be enthusiastically in support of stopping the legislation. “In effect, FOCA would certainly be a boon to the abortion industry with the government forced to condone and promote such procedures,” Neinstedt wrote on the Archdiocese Web site. “It is hard to imagine a more radical piece of pro-abortion legislation.”

While the Archdiocese hasn’t publicly commented on Tegeder’s letter, members of the laity have. One Catholic blogger called for his excommunication.

Another is initiating a postcard campaign of her own, directed at Tegeder. “Reducing abortions is not an acceptable goal. Stopping abortion entirely is,” wrote a St. Paul Catholic blogger. “Education is a large part of the effort. Father [Tegeder] may need some help understanding this.”

Another Minnesota Catholic blog wrote that Tegeder “not only endangers his own immortal soul, but also those of his parishioners.”

Tegeder has been a controversial member of Minnesota’s Catholic hierarchy. He has supported moves toward inclusion of gays and lesbians in the church, opposes the church ban on priests marrying, and once called Neinstedt “self-righteous” and “a bully.”

Photo by Susan WD.

In response he got hate mail and death threats from across the globe, or what Myers termed “the most impressive demonstration of mass lunacy I have ever seen.” He finally followed through on the threat, piercing a communion wafer with a rusty nail and tossing it in the trash. The Minnesota Independent published an interview with the unrepentant cracker abuser in July.

At issue are the scheduled events involving the Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery, a prominent civil-rights pastor, and the Rev. Rick Warren, whose statements about same-sex marriage and abortion have created an uproar among progressives.

“Under the Establishment Clause, Plaintiffs have a right to view their government in action without being forced to confront official endorsements of religious dogma with which they disagree. This is especially the case when that dogma stigmatizes them in the process,” reads the lawsuit. “Being forced to confront such religious dogma as the price to pay for observing a governmental ceremony is a substantial burden upon Plaintiffs’ rights of Free Exercise as well.”

The suit says that the planned religious services will impinge on the freedoms of some Americans. “One cannot freely live as an adherent to a religious ideology when the government uses its ‘power, prestige and financial support’ to impose a contrary religious doctrine while such individuals are observing its ceremonies.”

August Berkshire, president of Minnesota Atheists, issued a statement Tuesday, stating the organziation is “pleased to accept a personal invitation from Michael Newdow to be a plaintiff in this lawsuit. The swearing in of a president is a secular event. The oath of office is in the U.S. Constitution and it contains no religious references. It is unfortunate that while Barack Obama campaigned on a theme of unity, the very act of becoming president will serve to divide Americans along religious lines.”

The lawsuit is expected to be filed this week in United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

JEHT announced two weeks ago that because of the Madoff scandal they will cease all grant-making and shut their doors at the end of January.

“The JEHT Foundation Board deeply regrets that the important work that the Foundation has undertaken over the years is ending so abruptly,” JEHT Foundation president Robert Crane says in a message on the JEHT website. “The issues the Foundation addressed received very limited philanthropic support and the loss of the foundation’s funding and leadership will cause significant pain and disruption of the work for many dedicated people and organizations.”

Among those programs that benefited from JEHT, the Palliative Care Leadership Center at the Fairview Foundation has a current grant that will likely be terminated. PCLC received $300,000 in 2006 in a three-year grant. PCLC at Fairview provides training to hospital staff nationwide in assisting patients experiencing terminal illnesses.

A topic covered by the Minnesota Independent’s Anna Pratt and Paul Schmelzer got help from JEHT: The Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights received $300,000 in 2006 to conduct the commission that helped Liberian refugees tell their stories of a bloody civil war where civilians were frequently terrorized.

In 2007, the University of Minnesota Human Rights Center received $175,000 to provide legal assistance for the defense of detainees being prosecuted in military commissions.

Also in 2007, the Council on Crime and Justice received $265,310 for an 18 month grant how people who were arrested but no convicted were impacted by those arrests, specifically in terms of employment.

In 2008, JEHT helped Minnesota with voter registration. Minnesota’s Secretary of State’s office received $67,900 in funds to research ways to more accurately update voter registration rolls when people move.

Wellstone Action Fund got $74,000 in 2006 for voter engagement schools that train nonprofits in running voter engagement programs.

Coleman lights the Capitol menorah (Fox 9 News)

Washington state’s capitol has been beset with proliferating religious displays this holiday season — some of which are being taken as shots across the bow in the annual “War on Christmas” promoted on Fox News. “Fox and Friends” co-host and former Miss America Gretchen Carlson has been especially exercised about it, citing her Minnesota roots as she attacked a Festivus display at the Washington’s state capitol and free speech on Dec. 25 generally.

Minnesota’s own state capitol has been comparatively quiet, though a stray line in a recent TV news story caught my ear: U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman was on hand, the newscaster said, for the lighting of “the Capitol Menorah.” Wait a sec, I thought: “Capitol Menorah”? Does Minnesota state government sponsor religious displays?

A call to Jim Schwartz, who issues use permits for the capitol grounds as part of his job at the state Department of Administration, put my fears to rest. The menorah is put up by a private group and is the only religious display at the Ccpitol during the year, he said — not including, of course, the state capitol’s holiday tree, a living evergreen not far from the menorah on the grounds near the Capitol’s west wing. The tree is decorated each year by Department of Administration staff and is lit by Gov. Tim Pawlenty and First Lady Mary Pawlenty — this year the lighting took place during a Dec. 4 ceremony.

A group of rabbis from the Upper Midwest Merkos-Lubavitch House submitted the Capitol Facilities Use Request for the giant menorah on the Capitol grounds, Schwartz said, as they have for nine years now. In its application, the group wrote that the menorah is a “symbol of freedom … especially freedom of minorities from the tyranny of dictatorships,” Schwartz said. A call to the group so far hasn’t been returned. The menorah at the state capitol will remain through Dec. 29.

“We need something like human ecology, meant in the right way,” said the pontiff. “The Church speaks of human nature as ‘man’ or ‘woman’ and asks that this order is respected… The rain forests deserve our protection, but man as a creature indeed deserves no less.”

The Rev. Sharon Ferguson of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement took the Pope to task for his comments: “It is more the case that we need to be saved from his comments. It is comments like that that justify homophobic bullying that goes on in schools and it is comments like that that justify gay bashing.

“There are still so many instances of people being killed around the world, including in western society, purely and simply because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity.

“When you have religious leaders like that making that sort of statement then followers feel they are justified in behaving in an aggressive and violent way because they feel that they are doing God’s work in ridding the world of these people.”

Washington state is ground zero for this year’s war after the government allowed a nativity scene on the Capitol grounds. The overtly Christian display led some atheists to request that their own sign be permitted, and the government relented. Then a Festivus fan wanted the traditional pole placed at the Capitol. But when Fred Phelps wanted to install a sign saying that Santa is a child molester who sends people to hell, Gov. Chris Gregoire said enough is enough and declared a moratorium on new religious (and areligious) displays until the matter could be reviewed.

When Chuck Norris heard of the flap, the actor planted his roundhouse kick firmly on the atheists he blames for starting the mess in the first place.

“Atheists from England to the West Coast of America are stepping up their efforts this year to make a bigger antagonistic splash on the Christmas scene,” said Chuck. “I am a patriot, and I believe that atheists are free to believe, speak and post whatever they want. This is America, and that’s their First Amendment right. But to do so with harassment and hatred under the guise of free speech is despicable. An anti-religious poster filled with spite is in no way equal to a religious symbol, such as a Nativity scene. Where are the political correctness police when religious followers are the victims?”

And while Chuck might believe in free speech, Gretchen Carlson, former Minnesota beauty queen and current Fox News “War on Christmas” correspondent, says not so much: “I’m all for free speech and free rights, just not on December 25th.”

Perpetually outraged William Donahue of the Catholic League weighed in: It’s the gay marriage supporters who are to blame.

“The root cause of the war on Christmas, which is conducted almost exclusively by well-educated white people in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia — the very same people who like gay marriage — has almost nothing to do with fidelity to law (the First Amendment in the U.S.): it has to do with ideology. The ideology is plainly an expression of left-wing secularism, and it is nothing if not anti-Western and anti-Christian. At its worst, it is driven by hatred; at its best, it is driven by a defensive posture, a deep sense of embarrassment over the legacy of Western civilization. There is no historical or moral justification for either. Moreover, those who are pushing this agenda generally lie about their work.”

Despite fingering white, educated seculars, Donahue in his next breath plays the Muslim card. “[T]his hatred of Christmas is not exclusive to the U.S. In England, Muslim preacher Anjem Choudary called Christmas ‘evil’ in a recent sermon.”

Choudary did warn Muslims not to celebrate Christmas. “Every Muslim has a responsibility to protect his family from the misguidance of Christmas, because its observance will lead to hellfire. Protect your Paradise from being taken away – protect yourself and your family from Christmas,” he said.

While Donahue and Norris impart the wisdom of the founding fathers on Christmas, they missed an important part of history. The religious folk who began the American dream said roughly the same thing as the Muslim professor: Celebrating Christmas is the road to hell.

“The generality of Christmas-keepers observe that festival after such a manner as is highly dishonourable to the name of Christ,” said the Rev. Increase Mather in 1687. “How few are there comparatively that spend those holidays (as they are called) after an holy manner. But they are consumed in Compotations, in Interludes, in playing at Cards, in Revellings, in excess of Wine, in mad Mirth…”

In fact, conservative Christians banned Christmas in Massachusetts — the state that gave us gay marriage — until 1855.

Who will win the “War on Christmas”? If playing the Nazi card is an indication of having lost the debate, then the Minnesota Family Council may have put it out of play for the religious right.

“Some insist that singing a Christmas carol in a public school is a state endorsement of religion,” writes Family Council Communications Director Chuck Darrell. “Would the same people insist that reading Mien Kampf in social studies is a state endorsement of National Socialism (Nazis) as well? So tell me, what’s the difference?”

Warren answers the question, “Are you a homophobe?”

Contrary to early reports, AmericaBlog reports that Obama himself made the decision to include Warren, not the inauguration committee. “A powerful Democratic friend contacted me this morning to let me know that they talked to the key players yesterday, and Diane Feinstein, chair of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, had nothing to do with the pick of Rick Warren as Obama’s invocation speaker at the inaugural. The decision was made by Obama himself, I’m told, and Feinstein just assumed that he had vetted it with his staff.”

The Obama camp also passed out talking points ont he controversy:

Pastor Rick Warren has a long history of activism on behalf of the disadvantaged and the downtrodden. He’s devoted his life to performing good works for the poor and leads the evangelical movement in addressing the global HIV/AIDS crisis. In fact, the President-elect recently addressed Rick Warren’s Saddleback Civil Forum on Global Health to salute Warren’s leadership in the struggle against HIV/AIDS and pledge his support to the effort in the years ahead.

The President-elect disagrees with Pastor Warren on issues that affect the LGBT community. They disagree on other issues as well. But what’s important is that they agree on many issues vital to the pursuit of social justice, including poverty relief and moving toward a sustainable planet; and they share a commitment to renewing America’s promise by expanding opportunity at home and restoring our moral leadership abroad.

As he’s said again and again, the President-elect is committed to bringing together all sides of the faith discussion in search of common ground. That’s the only way we’ll be able to unite this country with the resolve and common purpose necessary to solve the challenges we face.

The Inauguration will also involve Reverend Joseph Lowery, who will be delivering the official benediction at the Inauguration. Reverend Lowery is a giant of the civil rights movement who boasts a proudly progressive record on LGBT issues. He has been a leader in the struggle for civil rights for all Americans, gay or straight.

And for the very first time, there will be a group representing the interests of LGBT Americans participating in the Inaugural Parade.

Obama also hit the airwaves to explain his side of the story.

Pundits and columnists are making their displeasure over Warren known. The Nation writes:

Warren represents the absolute worst of the Democrats’ religious outreach, a right-winger masquerading as a do-gooder anointed as the arbiter of what it means to be faithful. Obama’s religious outreach was intended, supposedly, to make religious voters more comfortable with him and feel included in the Democratic Party. But that outreach now has come at the expense of other people’s comfort and inclusion, at an event meant to mark a turning point away from divisive politics.

And three different Democratic pundits share three different views on CNN: