Katherine Kersten's Korner

The Star Tribune has posted Kersten's next column already, so it's time for another Katherine Kersten's Korner! This one could aptly be titled "Attack of the Homos" because Kersten swings her 10-watt thought bubble to illuminate Canada, and the repercussions of legalizing same-sex marriage there.

Can anybody guess whether Kersten thinks same-sex marriage is a bad thing or a good thing? You can? That's super. Let's take a look at how she goes about expressing her, ahem, "opinion" on this.

She starts off with a foul ball: she says that the anti gay-marriage amendment is "one of the biggest issues our state will face in the next legislative session." Not education, not health care, not the deteriorating condition of our roads, not jobs, but gay marriage. Yep, lots of people are worried about this issue. Unfortunately, it only goes downhill from here.

Kersten moves along to talk with a catholic bishop in Canada, who says that the legalization of gay marriage has created a "social revolution" in Canada. Personally, I find it extremely difficult to imagine Canadians revolting over anything, let alone gay marriage. They are just too polite. But nevertheless, apparently social structures are falling to the ground up north due to this.

Bishop Henry, who seems to think like Kersten, trots out the old conservative canard that if gay marriage is legalized, anybody who thinks that a man and woman are required to raised kids will be, in Henry's words, "the legal equivalent of racists." I have never understood this reasoning, for lots of reasons. First, who cares what some random Canadian (or American) thinks is the best form a family should take? I don't. Second, in the world I grew up in, a man and a woman weren't exactly the best parents around sometimes. What people like Henry are doing, when they present such a simplistic argument, is that the two worst male and female parents are better than the best same-sex couple. They will say that this isn't what they mean, but it is what they say.

Kersten also complains about how Canada is going through their laws to remove gender-specific language from the laws. That sounds good to me; what is wrong with using the word "spouse"? It would be nice if our own laws were gender neutral.

Next comes a perennial favorite for conservatives: children will be taught about homosexuality in schools. Since I believe in teaching facts and not teaching complete crap to further a political ideology, I am pretty offended that anybody would have a problem with teaching students that yes, homosexuals exist and that's okay. I doubt that Kersten realizes that GLBT teens are far more likely to commit suicide than the rest of the population, due to the fact that people like Kersten still can't get over the fact that homosexuals exist and that's okay. It's okay, really. And teaching students that it's okay is a good thing, not a bad thing.

And yes, it is going too far to brand talk against same-sex marriage as hate speech, but so far it sounds like the fear is what the so-called "thought police" could do, not what they have done.

Then, to sum up, Kersten says that nobody has taken advantage of the legalization of same-sex marriage. Hmm. It looks like Bishop Henry and Kersten called a revolution and nobody showed up. As far as putting this factoid in at the end of a column decrying same-sex marriage, it's a bit like building a house of cards and then slapping the lowest level out with a broomstick. I have a hunch that Kersten won't be guest-lecturing in any college-level composition classes in the near future.

Seriously, can we get a conservative columnist that doesn't simply rehash every tedious, boring, already destroyed Republican talking point out there? Come on, Star Tribune, is it that hard to find a conservative who can write more coherently than Kersten? Please tell me it's not that hard; this is a joke, right?