After now-former Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch (R) resigned her leadership post over an "innappropriate relationship," a Minneapolis gay man -- on behalf of the entire gay community -- is pouring salt on the wound.
John Medeiros, who curates an LGBT reading series in Minneapolis, wrote an open letter to Koch, saying he is sorry gays and lesbians have destroyed the institution of marriage and contributing to her inevitable relationship with a subordinate staffer.
"These recent events have made it quite clear that our gay and lesbian tacts have gone too far, affecting even the most respectful of our society," Medeiros wrote in the letter. He continues:
We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry. And we are doubly remorseful in knowing that many will see this as a form of sexual harassment of a subordinate.
Koch stepped down as majority leader last week, and the news of her relationship quickly spread. One of her top staffers, Michael Brodkorb, left the Senate recently, too. There's no firm evidence that the two events are related, but rumors are swirling.
Koch's critics paint her as a firm "anti-gay" legislator, though it's often ascribed. She did vote in favor of placing a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman on the November 2012 ballot.
Read Medeiros' full letter below:
An Open Apology to Amy Koch on Behalf of All Gay and Lesbian Minnesotans
Dear Ms. Koch, On behalf of all gays and lesbians living in Minnesota, I would like to wholeheartedly apologize for our community's successful efforts to threaten your traditional marriage. We are ashamed of ourselves for causing you to have what the media refers to as an "illicit affair" with your staffer, and we also extend our deepest apologies to him and to his wife. These recent events have made it quite clear that our gay and lesbian tactics have gone too far, affecting even the most respectful of our society.
We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry. And we are doubly remorseful in knowing that many will see this as a form of sexual harassment of a subordinate.
It is now clear to us that if we were not so self-focused and myopic, we would have been able to see that the time you wasted diligently writing legislation that would forever seal the definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman, could have been more usefully spent reshaping the legal definition of "adultery."
Forgive us. As you know, we are not church-going people, so we are unable to fully appreciate that "gay marriage" is incompatible with Christian values, despite the fact that those values carry a biblical tradition of adultery such as yours. We applaud you for keeping that tradition going.
And finally, shame on us for thinking that marriage is a private affair, and that our marriage would have little impact on anyone's family. We now see that marriage is more than that. It is an agreement with society. We should listen to the Minnesota Family Council when it tells us that marriage is about being public, which explains why marriages are public ceremonies. Never did we realize that it is exactly because of this societal agreement that the entire world is looking at you in shame and disappointment instead of minding its own business.
From the bottom of our hearts, we ask that you please accept our apology.
Thank you.
John Medeiros
Minneapolis MN
h/t City Pages.
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