Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! - Jesse Ventura [81]
As for gay marriage, a solution I endorse comes from a woman I met at Harvard when I was teaching there. She said, “Governor, solving the gay marriage question is simple. Government should not acknowledge marriage at all. Government should only acknowledge civil unions.” That way, when you fill out the consent form, your sex doesn’t even have to be asked. From that point on, you allow the church—a private institution—to choose whether or not to recognize gay marriage. But when two people are forming a civil union, whether you are heterosexual or homosexual doesn’t matter. The government is off the hook. With all the bickering and fighting over gay marriage, that’s as simple as it needs to be.
I’m proud of the fact that in 2006, Lavender—the top gay magazine in Minnesota—put me on the cover and said I was the best governor for gay rights in the state’s history. I find it interesting that distinction would come to a heterosexual Navy frogman, someone who could see through all the smoke and mirrors and know the difference between right and wrong. Even though I’m sure that the Christian right’s opinion would be that I’m completely out of line.
My views on abortion come from my mom. She was a nurse in surgery for her entire adult life, and used to tell me how terrible it was before Roe vs. Wade—when back-alley abortions often placed the woman’s life in danger. Today, some people live under a false premise that, if the government makes something illegal, it will go away. But then the illegal activity is simply controlled by an underground or criminal element. And, in the case of abortion, you will not receive the safety and precautions necessary.
In 2000, when I was governor, the Minnesota legislature passed what its supporters called the “Woman’s Right to Know” bill. It required that abortion providers give their patients information about alternatives, twenty-four hours before they had their abortion. Its opponents, including myself, preferred to call it the “Women Are Stupid” bill. Wouldn’t a woman walking into an abortion clinic already know what it is, and have come to a decision? She doesn’t need to read all this material on adoption, etc., in case she might change her mind. This piece of legislation seemed more like the first step toward additional restrictions on abortion services.
Running for office in 1998, I’d been asked to fill out a questionnaire for the Minnesota Family Council. I said that, without question, I opposed any ban on partial-birth abortions. But I also stated at the time that, while I wouldn’t promote any legislation calling for a twenty-four-hour waiting period, I’d sign it if the legislature passed it. So it’s true that I changed my position, after doing some considerable fact-checking, question-asking, and soul-searching when the bill became a reality.
First I had my staff call up a half-dozen abortion clinics in Minnesota and ask if any of them provided abortions in less than twenty-four hours. They all assured us that it already requires more than a twenty-four-hour wait after a woman walks in—it doesn’t happen immediately. So then what was the point of making the law?
I consulted with a former governor of Minnesota, Elmer Anderson. He was a great inspiration to me, and a terrific educator. He made it very clear that the Republican Party of today is not the same party that he’d been proud to be a part of. When I asked Elmer his advice on the abortion question, he said, “Abortion is religion’s failure to persuade. So now they must legislate.”
When even the Democratic Senate passed the twenty-four-hour notification bill only a few days after the Republican House, my office was literally besieged with thousands of phone calls from both sides on the issue. I had to either sign the bill, veto it, or allow it to become law without my signature in three days.
Terry and I were on our way to Washington,