Pawlenty's appointment of "strict constructionist" to Minnesota Supreme Court upsetts Star Tribune columnist

Liberal Star Tribune Nick Coleman, who seemingly dislikes anything conservative, is not surprisingly upset with Governor Pawlenty's appointment of Chris Dietzen to the Minnesota Supreme Court. Dietzen has served on the Minnesota Court of Appeals for the last several years and was appointed to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by Justice Sam Hanson who has gone back to private law practice. That means Pawlenty has appointed three of the seven justices to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Coleman was particularly upset by Pawlenty description of Dietzen as a person who "has proven himself to be a strict constructionist who will follow the rule of law with impartiality," Pawlenty went on to say, "In a time when legislating from the bench has unfortunately become commonplace, Judge Dietzen has continually used judicial restraint and common sense."

Where has the Minnesota Supreme Court been egregiously activist and legislating from the bench? The biggest example is the Court's 1990s decision Doe v. Gomez which found a constitutional right to abortion funding in the Minnesota Constitution. The result? Minnesota taxpayers paying for thousands of abortions each year.

As with most presidents and governors, their most long lasting legacy is often who they appoint to their respective supreme courts.

What is truth? What is compassion and love?

The "What is truth?" line was made famous by Pontius Pilate in his confrontation with Jesus the day before His crucifixion. That continues to be the issue confronting all of us and particularly in present day America.

That comes to mind when I saw the protest by homosexuals against Catholic Co-Adjudicator Archbishop Nienstedt who is being castigated for simply restating the Catholic view of homosexual behavior.

So many in our post-modern society believe we decide what is true when in fact we have no such luxury. It's laughable really. Like saying we can legislate a change in the law of gravity.

The same thing applies to the issue of compassion and love. Nick Coleman doesn't see a lot of compassion in the Archbishop's comments. In fact the exact opposite is true. Compassion involves desiring the best for other people and if people are doing something which will harm them now and for eternity, it's the compassionate, loving thing to warn the people that what they are doing is putting their lives at risk. That's exactly what the Archbishop Nienstedt is doing as he states in his response to Coleman's column.

Here's the Archbishop's response to Coleman's charges:

In a Nov. 28 column, Nick Coleman accuses me of not being compassionate toward friends and relatives of persons with same-sex attractions. I vigorously deny the charge. For 13 years I prepared priesthood candidates for celebrating the Sacrament of Penance by counseling them to welcome persons with warmth, compassion and understanding. Anyone who has celebrated that same sacrament with me knows I follow my own advice.

What Coleman wants is for the church I represent to be accepting and compassionate toward homosexual acts and lifestyles. And that can never be.

Coleman further claims the Catechism of the Catholic Church does not say that homosexual acts are a "grave evil." What it does say is the following: "Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity (Genesis 19: 1-29, Romans 1: 24-27, 1 Corinthians 6: 10, 1 Timothy 1:10), tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.' ... Under no circumstances can they be approved."

As a priest and bishop, I have the responsibility before God and in the name of Jesus Christ to call all men and women to conversion, the first step of which is recognizing sinful activity for what it is. Sometimes that is not a comfortable thing to do, but it is always the compassionate thing to do.

JOHN C. NIENSTEDT, ST. PAUL;

COADJUTOR ARCHBISHOP,

ARCHDIOCESE OF ST. PAUL AND MINNEAPOLIS

Way to go, Coadjutor Archbishop Nienstedt.

Star Trib columnist credits MFC with defeat of unhealthy sex ed bill

Nick Coleman gets everything else wrong.

We don't often agree with Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman, but he got one thing right in his June 13 column; he acknowledges that Governor Pawlenty’s firm opposition to comprehensive sex ed, and the DFL majority's backing down on it, were the result of MFC's mobilization of thousands of concerned parents who called the Governor and key legislators urging them to reject it.

Click Here to read column.

Click Here to listen to MFC Tom Prichard's interview on WCCO.

We also agree with Coleman that "mainstream parents" need to “make ourselves heard.” Please Nick, get as many parents involved as possible, because the more parents are informed of the unhealthy content in several sex education curricula, the easier it is to defeat.

Predictably, Coleman ignored our central theme; that teaching children sex activities such as anal and anal-oral sex is unhealthy. (An examination of several sex education curricula in Minnesota revealed the unhealthy content listed above. See Birds & Bees.)

We shouldn't be surprised then that Coleman called the sex education bill “moderate.” As Coleman quotes MFC statements that exposed the unhealthy curricula, we have to assume he believes teaching children about anal sex, and anal-oral sex is “moderate” as well.

MFC encourages parents to refer to comprehensive sex education as “unhealthy.” “Mainstream” parents understand that teaching this material to children grades 7-12 sex is unhealthy. Most legislators agree.

Also, the well-documented rise in STDs and STIs in Minnesota clearly indicates that current comp sex education is unhealthy as well. In fact, it is a colossal failure as more children have become infected.

Education Minnesota cashing in their chips - and children suffer

By John Helmberger

MFC supports school choice as a key part of the solution to the problem off ailing public schools. Nobody cares more about the education of children than their parents do, and nobody is in a better position to determine what's best for their children's education than the parents are.

So we share the dismay of charter school supporters around the state at the Minnesota Senate proposal to limit school choice by capping the number of charter schools in the state at barely more than the current number (Pioneer Press, March 23rd).

Minnesota's experience with charter schools may not be problem-free, but there is no disputing the fact that they have given thousands of students, and their parents, a desperately needed alternative to public schools that were letting them down. Nick Coleman's ranting in the Strib not withstanding, the success of the charter school experiment makes the senate proposal to pull the plug on them that much more difficult to explain. Even House education advocate, Rep. Mindy Greiling (DFL-Roseville) - no moderate herself - described the proposal as "a pretty loopy idea that came out of left field," according to the Pioneer Press.

We think the Senate's "loopy" proposal reveals who's really in control overthere: Education Minnesota, the state's largest teachers' union, which played a major role in the DFL legislative gains last November, is calling in it's chips.