His support of the amendment first came in the form of an editorial this past weekend for the Star Tribune, Minnesota’s largest newspaper. In his column, Birk warned that “marriage is in trouble right now.” Adding that “in the last few years, political forces and a culture of relativism have replaced ‘I am my brother’s keeper’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ with ‘live and let live’ and ‘if it feels good, go ahead and do it.’”

He’s since released a short video on the topic with the help of the Minnesota Catholic Conference.

Birk’s decision to speak out for marriage comes off the heels of several other NFL players coming out in favor of same sex unions.

His support for marriage, however, is shared by most Minnesotans. According to recent polls, 49% of voters support the amendment while 47% oppose it.

Matt deserves our support for speaking out on this issue. He knows full well that what he is doing makes him a target for marriage redefiners across the country. Thank you, Matt!

h/t Michael Blissenbach

In New Hampshire, Minnesota and North Carolina, pro-marriage advocates are on offense, working to repeal gay marriage (NH) or adding marriage to state constitutions that don’t have it yet (MN, NC).

In New Jersey, Maryland and Washington State, gay marriage activists are trying to legalize gay marriage, and are attempting to prevent the issue going before a vote of the people in those states.

Today in Maine, gay marriage activists announced that they will attempt to pass gay marriage by a vote of the people in 2012. The people of Maine defeated gay marriage in 2009 by a 53%-47% margin.

Meanwhile, the presidential election in November will between a Republican candidate who supports marriage and Barack Obama, whose record on marriage is abysmal.

The outcome of this race will directly influence the future make-up of the Supreme Court and, in turn, how this issue is ultimately decided in the courts.

There are three outcomes to this year’s marriage battles:

1) gay marriage activists and advocates of protecting marriage split these battles and the war for marriage continues on into the future.

2) gay marriage activists succeed in more states than they fail, convincing themselves that momentum to redefine marriage is on their side, emboldening them to press on, while religious liberty continues to be rolled back as a result.

3) advocates of protecting marriage succeed in a majority (if not all) of these contests and we go on to remember 2012 as the year that efforts to redefine marriage were stopped in their tracks. Emboldened by success, advocates of protecting marriage go on to repeal gay marriage where it is currently legal and are left free to dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to the important task of building up marriage as the foundational social institution of our country.

… I don’t know about you, but I want to see #3 come to pass this year.

Why is it important for Catholics in particular to work actively to protect marriage? The seven bishops of New Jersey explain why succinctly today:

Why should citizens care about the state’s definition of marriage?

Citizens must care about the government’s treatment of marriage because civil authorities are charged with protecting children and the common good, and marriage is indispensable to both purposes. Citizens have the right and the responsibility to hold civil authorities accountable for their stewardship of the institution of marriage. Citizens also have the responsibility to oppose laws and policies that unjustly target people as bigots or that subject people to charges of unlawful discrimination simply because they believe and teach that marriage is the union of man and a woman.

Their entire letter is well worth reading. They recommend doing three things to help protect marriage:

First, pray for all married couples and all families. Second, reflect on this important question, “How can I help my family and the families I touch to grow in hope, love, peace and joy.” Third, we ask everyone to reach out to your neighbors, your legislators and the governor with a simple message: “Preserve the definition of marriage as a union of one man and one woman.”

I would add a Fourth thing to do: join/support the National Organization for Marriage (where I work) which is dedicated to protecting marriage across the U.S. and a Fifth thing to do if you live in one of the states I mention above: find the local group in your state in charge of protecting marriage and join them.

They will have things for you to do which will enormously help in the fight to protect marriage.

Sixth, take action on these pending action alerts right now:

• New Hampshire SSM Repeal Vote
• Stop the NJ Same-Sex Marriage Bill!
• Help Stop Same-Sex Marriage in Washington!
• Tell Governor Christie You Expect Him to Keep His Promises on Marriage
• Thank Senate President Mike Miller! (MD)

Seventh, share this post on Facebook, Twitter and via Email!

I’ve written many times before about the threats of redefining marriage, to religious liberty, to individuals, to Catholic institutions, and — most importantly — to the next generation and to society. Please join this important fight. Let’s make 2012 a year of marriage victories we can be proud about. THANK YOU!

For instance, as Kathryn Lopez reports, over 80 PBS stations recently aired a portion of the 10-part Catholicism series Catholicism. CatholicVote has been proud to promote the program.

But when many of the 700,000 Catholics in the Twin Cities, Minnesota area asked their local PBS affiliate to carry the program, they declined by claiming it was “sectarian” — even while admitting it was “well produced and interesting” (you can contact the Twin Cities PBS at viewerservices@tpt.org).

[Update: a brief search on the Twin Cities PBS website reveals they are airing this program on Sunday, November 13th: "Bridging Cultures: Islam and the West":

The cultural and scientific exchanges that have occurred over centuries between Western and Islamic nations have led to countless advances in literature, philosophy, architecture, mathematics, physics and the visual arts. Those exchanges are discussed by scholars gathered from around the world. Produced with the UM Program in Religious Studies.]

Yesterday before the Federal Communications Commission, Bishop Gabino Zavala, chair of the Communications Committee at the USCCB asked that religious programming be one of the categories that broadcasters report, and that they make these schedules available on the internet (the FCC is scheduled to vote on the proposal today).

Interesting to me was the reasons Bishop Zavala gave for endorsing the move (underlining mine):

Bishop Zavala stressed that religious programming needs to be one of the reporting categories. “In proceeding after proceeding, USCCB has informed the Commission of the increasing difficulty and financial burden it and Catholic dioceses face in obtaining airtime on local broadcast stations for full length programs and even public service announcements.

[The] USCCB has expended resources to gather and organize that information, but the Commission frequently has dismissed this information as ‘merely anecdotal,’” he explained. Requiring broadcasters to disclose the actual programs they air will provide much needed facts for the public to participate in the license renewal process and in future rulemakings.

In other words, the claim being made here I think is not that broadcasters will often explicitly censor Catholic programming, but that they will simply employ other means to make it difficult or impossible for Catholic dioceses to get in front of a TV audience — and one of the ways they may do this is by shielding from public view the schedule of programming they are airing.

Catholics are not used to being watchdogs of the airwaves, but I think a little more vigilance is necessary, especially when one considers what an opportunity for evangelization and reaching people is being missed when it is made especially difficult for Catholics to get airtime. PBS, after all, is supposed to be a public service, and Catholics have an equal right to take advantage of those services.

I’d be curious, for instance, to see what other “sectarian” programs the Twin Cities PBS affiliate may have aired over the years. I’d also be curious to see a map of which PBS affiliates consented to show a portion of Catholicism and which ones didn’t.

If someone feels like doing that research and make it publicly available, I think we’d all be interested in seeing the results.

As a result, gay activists have been targeting religious communities in that state who oppose same-sex marriage and are trying to sow dissent there.

It’s not surprising that a group of people who believe they can simply redefine what marriage is also thinks they can simply redefine what it means to be Catholic.

At any rate, I applaud the Minnesota Catholic Conference and the Archdiocese of Saint Paul & Minneapolis for calling one of the worst-offending groups out:

The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis and the Minnesota Catholic Conference issued a joint statement today explaining that a newly formed group calling itself “Catholics for Marriage Equality MN” has no recognition from nor affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church.

One of Catholics for Marriage Equality MN’s expressed aims is to defeat the Minnesota Marriage Protection Amendment that will appear on the November 2012 ballot, and which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The group misleadingly tries to convince Catholics that they can, in good conscience, support a state redefinition of marriage without undermining marriage itself. The Catholic Church, in keeping with Catholic teaching, reason and natural law, and in concert with many other faiths, strongly supports maintaining the current, traditional definition of marriage by voting “yes” for the Amendment during the November 2012 election.

[Read the full statement here.]

I’ve written about the umbrella group behind this Minnesota chapter (“Catholics for Equality”) here and also made sure to point out when the Archdiocese of DC clarified that the group was founded “in opposition to Church teaching”. Abp. Broglio of the Archdiocese of the Military Services has also made clear that Catholics for Equality is a fake Catholic group.

Meanwhile, If you live in Minnesota, I urge you to join the Minnesota for Marriage campaign which is the main group dedicated to making sure marriage wins at the ballot box in 2012.

And on a related note, check-out the newly-launched Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance which is dedicated to protecting and defending individuals who have publicly spoken-out or acted in defense of traditional marriage. Catholics and other people of good will need to stick together and stand up for marriage!

Minnesota now joins Indiana, Maryland, Rhode Island and North Carolina which have seen progress made towards protecting marriage this year (pray that New York is next!).

The National Organization for Marriage has pledged their full support to ensuring traditional marriage wins the day next year and the Minnesota Catholic Conference released a statement welcoming the outcome.

In both the House and the Senate, a handful of brave Democrats (actually, the Democrat party in MN is the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, or “DFL”) joined Republicans to create a bipartisan majority of elected MN officials who favored allowing the people to decide the marriage question.

It takes a great deal of courage to buck your party and vote for marriage if you are an elected Democrat. The litany of abusive language leveled at any legislator or person who dared to allow the people to vote on marriage is briefly cataloged here (to summarize: they were described as pro-bullying, Nazi-inspired, slavery-sympathetic, pro-stoning, anti-woman, and of course anti-gay bigots, on the Minnesota House floor, to their faces!).

In the House, two DFL’s ended up voting for the marriage amendment bill, and in the Senate, one DFL stood with the Republicans – we should contact them and thank them for putting principle over party:

Rep. Lyle Koenen
651-296-4346
rep.lyle.koenen@house.mn

Rep. Denise Dittrich
651-296-5513
rep.denise.dittrich@house.mn

Sen. Leroy Stumpf
651-296-8660
sen.leroy.stumpf@senate.mn

Plus there’s nothing to stop you from thanking every legislator who voted for the bill. The complete list of pro-marriage House officials here and the list of pro-marriage Senate officials here (every “R” and Sen. Stumf, DFL). You can bet they are getting plenty of hate mail – please help show them that the quiet majority appreciates what they did.

Be advised – four Republicans in the House did vote against the bill (Kriesel, Murray, Smith, and Kelly). Kriesel’s staff had previously sent this threatening note to a local Catholic priest over the marriage debate.

The number of good Catholics (and other people of faith) who worked to help pass the marriage amendment is too long to list, but special props go to Teresa Collett and Stephen Heaney for their op-ed in the Twin Cities Pioneer Press, and to a very dedicated young papist in Minnesota who helped keep me stay up to speed with what was happening on the ground day by day (or more often, hour by hour).

Finally, special ignominy goes to Rep. Joe Mullery (DFL) for introducing this anti-Catholic bill in the heat of the marriage amendment debate:

As part of “Catholic governance” [the bill reads] a parish “shall be governed by the congregation. Every member of the parish shall be entitled to vote at meetings.”

The bill violates the separation of church and state required by the U.S. Constitution, said religious scholars and critics of the legislation.

Jason Adkins, executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, which lobbies on behalf of the state’s bishops, said the bill “represents a gross intrusion of the state into the affairs and governance of a church. The bishop is responsible for the governance of his particular diocese. It violates that very core principle of Catholic doctrine and Catholic life and practice.”

So, to recap, brave Catholics and other people of faith worked in Minnesota to propose a simple proposition: that for something as fundamental as the definition of marriage, the people (not the courts) should decide what marriage is.

For doing so, these folks had criticism and abuse hurled at them – and some elected officials, in reprisal, went so far as to threaten the Church’s tax status and to attempt to take away its right to self govern.

But in the end, once again, the victory went to the committed and courageous faithful. Praise God.

This development represents a dramatic turn of events and underscores the importance of making sure pro-family voters show up on Election Day. In the run-up to last year’s elections, pro-family activists in Minnesota were worried that Mark Dayton would get elected governor (which he did, narrowly). A Dayton win, combined with a Democratic-controlled Legislature would likely mean an effort to redefine marriage in Minnesota.

And yet, marriage activists didn’t rest. They re-doubled their efforts and elected candidates to the Legislature who supported marriage. This hard work flipped the Legislature into Republican hands (a shock to this Minnesota native) by a mere 357 votes!

Now, instead of a vote redefining marriage, the Legislature is giving the people of Minnesota the chance to enshrine marriage as a union of one man and one woman into their state Constitution. And so far, marriage has been placed before voters 31 times and marriage has won 31 times.

But that doesn’t mean that Minnesota Catholics should take this vote for granted. After all, last year proved that every vote counts.

• The Minnesota House might vote as early as this afternoon to place a proposed Constitutional amendment that would define marriage as a union of one man and one woman before the voters in 2012. The Minnesota Senate has already approved the measure. Even before the House opened at 9 a.m. this morning both supporters and opponents of the amendment were lined up with placards defending their position. Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage is pleading with all Minnesotans to get involved today: “This issue could be taken up by the House of Representatives as early as this afternoon. We urgently need thousands of our supporters to email Republican legislators in Minnesota right away.” Visit this action page at NOM to get involved.
• On the topic of marriage, you can read my latest column at Headline Bistro: “Same-sex marriage is not inevitable.”
• And speaking of Minnesota, to no one’s surprise, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty will formally announce he’s running for President on Monday with a speech in Iowa.
• Today marks 60 days since President Obama notified Congress under the War Powers Act that he sent American troops into action against Libya. Jaime Dupree of the Atlanta Journal Constitution notes: “And since the Congress has not authorized such military action, technically, U.S. military action must cease against Libya. So far though, the White House has not said anything publicly about how it will deal with this 60 day time frame, which was put into law during the Vietnam War by the Congress – passed over the veto of President Richard Nixon.”
• Bill McGurn unloads on Dick Notebaert, Notre Dame’s Chairman of the Board, for defending the decision to invite Roxanne Martino to serve on ND’s Board. Martino gave large sums of cash to Emily’s List, which should disqualify her from serving on the Board, McGurn says. “On the home page of it’s website, Emily’s List asks you to ‘HELP US ELECT PRO-CHOICE DEMOCRATIC WOMEN.’ Pace Mr. Notebaert, this is not a group that ‘also takes’ a view on abortion. Abortion is the issue here. Emily’s List has no other purpose. This is America’s premier group for electing pro-choice Democratic women.  If Ms. Martino in her innocence truly did not realize that elementary fact about an exceptionally well-established political group that she chose to give her money to, is this a person who belongs on a university’s board of trustees? And what does her decision to support that group over several years say about Mr. Notebaert’s claim that she is not pro-choice?”

Kurt Zellers will become Speaker in MN House

And no I’m not talking about the Minnesota Governor’s race which is so close that it’s going into recount, with Democrat Mark Dayton up about 8000 votes over Republican Tom Emmer.

Supporters of so-called “same-sex marriage” had their sights set on Minnesota to become the next state to recognize these counterfeit marriages.

But to everyone’s surprise, the Republican Party not only won the State House, they won the State Senate for the first time in nearly 40 years.

Politics in Minnesota discovered that razor thin victories over five races determined control in the State House:

Five races in particular were extremely close, with Republicans winning all five by the aggregate total of 357 votes. Had Democrats managed a strategically placed 400 additional votes in those areas, they would have clung to their majority status by a single vote.

The margins of GOP victory in these five races: 134, 107, 58, 30, and 28. Don’t let anyone every tell you that your vote doesn’t make a difference.

Now instead of a Democratic-controlled Legislature approving same-sex marriages, a Republican-led Legislature might try to place a Constitutional amendment on the Minnesota ballot in 2012. (Which could have an impact on the presidential race as it did in Ohio in 2004.)