Minnesota state Representative Steve
Simon on Monday was in the clear minority during a House committee
debate on gay marriage when he told lawmakers that being gay is a
gift from God.
The
Civil Law Committee approved along party lines a resolution that
seeks to place a gay marriage ban in the state's constitution. A
Senate companion measure cleared its first hurdle in that chamber on
Friday.
Minnesota state law already bans gay
and lesbian couples from marrying but supporters argue that the law
remains vulnerable to a legal challenge.
“We have to be careful about trying
to enshrine our beliefs, however religiously valid you may believe
them to be, in the Minnesota Constitution,” Simon, a Democrat, told
lawmakers. “What I'm hearing today and what I heard on Friday was
largely a religious justification for change in the Minnesota
Constitution. I don't think that's right. I don't think that's
fair.”
“I want to take a page from what I
heard last Friday in the Senate testimony. There was a member of the
clergy … and he said, 'You know what? Sexuality and sexual
orientation are a gift from God.' And I think that's true. I think the scientific evidence shows more and more every day that
sexuality and sexual orientation are innate and something people are
born with.”
“If that's true,” Simon told ban
supporters, “what does that mean to the moral force of your
argument?”
“How many more gay people does God
have to create before we ask ourselves whether or not God actually
wants them around?” he added to a round of applause. (The video is
embedded in the right panel of this page.)