On Feb 22, 2004, at 4:59 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
<snip>
Actually, Bill, I don't believe it is a valid analogy. One of the judges
who refused to halt SF's gay marriages made a truly valid point: this is a
civil rights issue. Handing out drugs or guns is not.
Guns are a civil rights issue. Read the Bill of Rights. It's right after Amendment One.
The mayor of San Francisco is being civilly disobedient, in effect sitting
in at the lunch counter of this nation's double standard for homosexuals.
<snip>
To bring this back to a Minneapolis context - if the city chooses to engage in such civil disobedience, is the Minnesota constitution as potentially hospitable, and if Minneapolis "goes there," how severely would we be punished at the state level?
After all, sitting in a lunch counter often earned retribution.
Hey David: if I refuse to pay my state taxes because my money will go to fund abortions, will you defend my rights under the Minnesota Constitution(1), or will you just throw me unto the mercy of the state for exercising my rights of conscience - while public officials who violate the law and their constitutional authority are not held to account?
Neal Krasnoff Loring Park
------Begin cite
(1) []FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE; NO PREFERENCE TO BE GIVEN TO ANY RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENT OR MODE OF WORSHIP. The enumeration of rights in this constitution shall not deny or impair others retained by and inherent in the people. The right of every man to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience shall never be infringed; nor shall any man be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship, or to maintain any religious or ecclesiastical ministry, against his consent; nor shall any control of or interference with the rights of conscience be permitted, or any preference be given by law to any religious establishment or mode of worship; but the liberty of conscience hereby secured shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness or justify practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of the state, nor shall any money be drawn from the treasury for the benefit of any religious societies or religious or theological seminaries. (Minnesota Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 16)
------End cite
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