Gay GOP MN Lawmaker to Vote Against Marriage Equality

Openly gay Minnesota State Senator Paul Koering has announced that he intends to vote against a bill in that state’s legislature that would create gender neutral marriage laws, thus creating marriage equality for the LGBT Minnesotans.

Sen. Koering has stated that he feels that the state of Minnesota has bigger problems to face than marriage equality and, I guess, than LGBT equal rights under the law.  Moreover, the Senator is quoted as saying:

“I think some gay activists will be upset with me for this, but sometimes I think an agenda is pushed so far and so fast that people have no alternative but to push back.”

And to prove it, State Senator Koering has made it clear that he intends to push back against this “gay agenda”.

Wow, what a profile in courage.   Brave of the Senator, who represents a staunchly conservative district where he faced stiff primary opposition for his position on LGBT rights in his last election, to lead the charge to stifle this overly aggressive gay “agenda”.

I guess a person should vote his or her conscience on such things.  But I have a hard time believing that the Senator’s conscience is truly worried about backlash (as he seems to be stating) to the point that he feels it necessary to preemptively thwart LGBT equality under the law.   

Then again, maybe his conscience is bothering him: the part of his conscience that desires, at all costs, to be re-elected and to continue to receive all the perks of privilege that a legislator gets while denying the basics of equality that others like him long for.

(Image courtsey of Minnesota State Legislature Web Site)