eva young
Eva Young is President of Log Cabin Republicans of Minnesota and lives in Minneapolis with her cat, Kiddleleewink. You can also read her other blog here.
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September 12, 2004

For those of you not familiar with Minnesota politics, Senator Michele Bachmann (R, Stillwater) is the Marilyn Musgrave of Minnesota.

During last week's Radio show "Garage Logic", guest host Dave Thompson discussed the "Truth Truck", which displays a sign showing two gay men kissing, with the slogan - Want Gay Marriage Vote Democratic. Jeffrey Davis, the sponsor of the truck, called into the show, and claimed Senator Michele Bachmann had inspired the truck. I called Jeffrey Davis to follow up. I asked him whether Bachmann or the Minnesota Family Council had helped him with the website content or design, and he denied that. He also said he was legally independent of the Republican Party of Minnesota - and that coordination would have been illegal (true). He also mentioned that some Republicans had told him he was making the party look bad. He wouldn't name the people who said that. He said there are about 200 donors to his organization, and that he has personally put around $25,000 into this effort. He said the rest of the donors were in his report - but said a few donors had contributed most of the funding.

Davis said his major concern was that gay marriage would lead to church ministers being put in jail for quoting bible verses (such as Leviticus 18:20). He points a bill (C-250) in Canada that he claims would make sections of the bible "hate literature." I read the text of the bill, and am not sure where they get this. Amnesty International wrote a brief in favor of this bill. Christianity Today covers the internal divide among Canadian Christians over this.

I've always been opposed to "hate speech" codes, and certainly oppose hate speech laws. I feel the best answer to hate speech is more speech. It's worth noting that many of usual suspects in the Leviticus Crowd who have been strong opponents of hate crimes laws and hate speech laws (Falwell, Dobson et al), also were successful in getting the USQueers website shut down for "hate speech."