MN Marriage Ban In Jeopardy After Anti-Gay Prayer By Bradlee Dean

Yesterday virulently anti-gay preacher Bradlee Dean delivered the invocation before the Minnesota legislature. Dean's prayer was so offensive, it may have the unintended result of thwarting the attempt to place a ban on same-sex marriage on the statewide ballot.

Dean, who heads a ministry he calls "You Can Run But You Can't Hide," has caused uproars before, saying homosexuals should be jailed and making comments that appear to support their execution. Friday's bombshell arrived just as legislators were prepping for a vote to put the amendment question on the 2012 ballot. While the vote had once seemed a certainty for this session, by Friday afternoon it was in serious doubt.

"We never said whether we are going to take it up or not," said Zellers, R-Maple Grove. Pressed on the timing of the vote, Zellers said: "At this point, I don't [know] and I'm not prepared to say." Zellers later said he still believes he has the votes to pass the amendment. The Minnesota Family Council, advocates of the amendment, sent out an evening e-mail to its members, asking them to turn out at the State Capitol to apply pressure. The Legislature must adjourn its regular session by Monday at midnight.

The Republican legislator who invited Dean to speak compared him to a Nazi, adding: "Little did I know there's another side of him, which, by the way, I just learned today." That seems doubtful, as Dean is easily the most famously evil homophobe in Minnesota.

UPDATE: NOM reacts to the above-linked story: "The suggestion of violence (if this account is true) is abhorrent, especially from a man of the cloth. But should the people of Minnesota be deprived of the right to vote because somebody in the state legislature did not vet a so-called pastor?"

(Tipped by JMG reader David)