It was on this date in both 2017, as well as 2018, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” first profiled Glenn Gruenhagen, a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives who first came onto the scene back in, you guessed it, the 2010 Tea Party Wave with but 51% of the vote. He since has somehow gathered a following among GOP voters, winning with at least 60% of the vote in 2012, 2014, and 2016. Perhaps his charm with his party lies in his radical social conservative views, like that he is “pro life from conception to natural death” and thinks that abortion somehow has “economic consequences” or that he claims the Affordable Care Act will lead to “healthcare rationing”, a frequently debunked myth the right likes to spread about the ACA that has been widely known to be a bogus talking point for around… oh, eight or nine years now.
Gruenhagen’s signature issue, however, is LGBTQ rights, or why we should not have them. Going back to his earliest days serving on a school council, Gruenhagen has been fervently anti-gay, often interrupting school board meetings to, non sequitur, rant about the evils of sodomy. In 2005, his own colleagues noted:
. . .With regularity Mr. Gruenhagen inserts his own biases into school board meetings with not the least provocation. Abortion, homosexuality, safe sex, evolution and countless other topics that do not appear on the school board’s agenda are brought to the fore, repeatedly, and forced onto unsuspecting school board members, administrators and individuals in the viewing audience. To do so is rude, a violation of school board decorum, a waste of attendees’ time and a disruption in the flow of otherwise quality public meetings. He ignores the expert advice of the superintendent of schools, two architectural firms, a construction management firm … Incredible! …
Back in 2007, Gruenhagen also wrote an op-ed in his local paper, where he wanted to discuss Christmas… The topic he veered off for a moment to show how aghast he was at Congressman Keith Ellison being sworn in on a copy of the Koran and how it was a plot to have it someday take the place of the Bible, and somehow, he went even further off course from talking about celebrating the birth of Jesus and instead onto the dread topic of sodomy:
”When newly elected U.S. Congressman Keith Ellison insisted on using the Koran (Qur’an) at his oath of office, many citizens raised concerns about the symbolism of that event… . . I believe we see the disturbing and subtle influence of using the Koran to replace the Bible as our source of “civil and religious liberties.”
…Many have great concern for our country as we have drifted from the Judeo-Christian principles which gave us our liberties and freedoms, into the religion of atheism, such as the belief in abortion, pornography, sodomy as an orientation, evolution, etc. The corruption of atheistic values in our schools and government institutions leaves open the door for a foreign religious value system to influence our country’s culture. [emphasis added] Many patriotic Americans are concerned that our freedoms and liberties will be lost with the censorship and removal of our Creator who authored our liberty and freedoms. Is it important for publicly elected officials to place their hand on the Bible during their oath of office in spite of the American Civil Liberties Union? I’ll let you decide.”
At another point in 2013, Gruenhagen wrote a column online that linked any constituent who read it to an anti-gay hate group from Massachusetts that conveniently still reports sodomy is a crime (which, no, not after the Lawrence v. Texas ruling in 2003). The gist of all this rants is, by being allowed to exist, and marry people, and have any gay sex, the gay community are “coming after Christians with their gay agenda” and that homosexuality is just a form of “sexual addiction” based on an “unscientific lie”. And he will, at any point, reflexively start telling lies about homosexuals.
The “secret gay agenda” is hardly the only bizarre conspiracy theory Gruenhagen believes in, as he is also a climate change denier wielding a particularly abhorrent lack of logic, insisting that talk of it is “a United Nations fraud”, while making the idiotic accusation that those who do acknowledge evidence of climate change “believe that exhaling is causing global warning”, citing “facts he learned at CPAC”. And honestly, when the most sane idea you’ve pitched in government is to castrate sex offenders because “it worked on the farm”, maybe you shouldn’t be a legislator. That’s just us at CSGOPOTD thinking, though.
And, regrettably, Glenn Gruenhagen was elected to a fifth term in office in 2018, where we’re sure he’ll continue to try and block any LGBTQ rights bills that cross his path. Or any measure that has any common sense, even something as simple as a ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to include an equal rights amendment.
We’re hoping that 2020 will end Gruenhagen’s career at an even decade, and not allow him to linger and obstruct the positive progressive changes being enacted in Minnesota.
One Year Ago, November 25th, 2018: Glenn Gruenhagen (MN)… 2018 Update
Two Years Ago, November 25th, 2017: Glenn Gruenhagen (MN)… Original Profile
Three Years Ago, November 25th, 2016: Don Dwyer (MD)
Four Years Ago, November 25th, 2015: Stephen LaRoque (NC)
Five Years Ago, November 25th, 2014: Andre Bauer (SC)