On MSNBC's Verdict with Dan Abrams on May 22, 2008 former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura said that marriage equality should not be a referendum question on the ballot in California because “…you can't put a civil rights issue on the general ballot in a state and let people vote on it, because if you do that, in the southern states before, you can bet they would have voted to continued slavery." This is exactly what I was talking about in my rant of last week that Human Right should not be put to a popular vote.
Ventura on gay marriage: Civil rights should not be up to popular vote
PageOneQ
by Nick Langewis
During a panel discussion on Senator John McCain's recent interview with Ellen DeGeneres, former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura strongly disagreed with conservative commentator Pat Buchanan on the issue of voting on fellow citizens' civil rights.
"First of all," Ventura began, "I made a statement when I was Governor and I stand by it today: Love is bigger than government.
"Who the hell are we as a government to tell people who you can fall in love with? I think it's absurd, the fact that it's even being debated."
…
Marriage, being a "cinderblock of society," should be exclusive to heterosexuals, he [Buchanan] concluded. "If government wants to set up civil unions and benefits for 'people like that,' it ought to be done by elected legislators, not by unanointed judges who are behaving more and more like tyrants in this country, imposing their values on us."
"If the elected officials will stand up for what's right and do what's right with civil rights, I fully agree with you," Ventura countered. "But you can't put a civil rights issue on the general ballot in a state and let people vote on it, because if you do that, in the southern states before, you can bet they would have voted to continued slavery."
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