Last week, at the Twin Cities Gay Pride Festival in Minneapolis, Log Cabin Republicans passed out some freebies promoting oil drilling.

Those were condoms with the slogan “Drill, baby, drill!!…just don’t spill.”

Needless to say the condoms were a hit. Even Democrat Congressman Keith Ellison took a few over to the Democrats booth.

“What a great way to be in the spirit of pride,” said Log Cabin Republicans of Minnesota spokesman Alan Shilepsky.

The Star Tribune reports:

“People are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants against debtors has jumped 60 percent over the past four years, with 845 cases in 2009.”

While the jailing is usually for a secondary reason, such as missing a court date on a financial matter, the situation has been exacerbated because collection agencies have increasingly turned to the courts and sought sanctions. These collection agencies are often debt buyers who purchase the accounts and pursue them.

Many of those thrown in jail are already destitute, intimidated by the legal process and overcome by hopelessness.

Although Minnesota is at the center of creditor friendly laws, it is not the only state allowing some questionable practices.

Most are only held in jail for 48 hours. However, in Illinois a man was sentenced for an “indefinite incarceration” until he could come up with $300 for a lumber yard debt.

Indiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, Arizona and Washington are also increasing their arrests on people who have run a foul of the law on debt.

Clark introduced a bill that would ban state employees and elected officials from staying at any in-state “facility that makes pornographic images or performances available to its patrons.”

Associated Press is circulating an article that this bill only involves violent porn. They got it wrong. The language in the legislation is broad enough to exclude just about any porn.

Senate Bill 2861 defines a “pornographic image or performance” as “a sexually explicit image or performance that objectifies or exploits its subjects by eroticizing domination, degradation, or violence.”

Clark and her supporters believe this will remove the state from supporting sexual violence. Yet porn, by its nature, is edgy. There is hardly a porn flick produced that does not have some hint of “domination, degradation, or violence” in it.

The idea of getting rid of sexual violence is commendable. This bill might even get a few hotels to drop porn, but maybe not. After all, porn is profitable and popular.

It is also legal. That raises the question if the state should interfere in directing what state employees do in their free time, even if it is a state-paid hotel room. Why stop at porn? There are many R-rated movies that are more menacing with sexual violence that is graphic or psychological. Clark and her colleagues do not seem to be interested in banning HBO though.

The best part of the bill is that some bureaucrat in the Minnesota Department of Administration is going to have a job watching porn and defining which porn flicks have “domination, degradation, or violence” and which porn flicks do not.

Porn producers do not list their products according to the levels of “degradation.” How does Clark figure any of this is going to be implemented? Does she think that the porn companies are going to capsulate summaries for Minnesota bureaucrats to read?

The only practical option is to avoid all hotels that have any porn.

There is a clause in the bill that if porn-free hotels cannot be found, then the ones with porn are acceptable. In the end, this may be a lot of talk for nothing. Even if it passes, state employees may still end up going to the same hotels as before.

If nothing else, then at least the state of Minnesota will have an official and experienced porn reviewer.

In Minnesota, a legislative committee is considering same-sex marriage and received testimony from a range of people including Congressional candidates Barb Davis White and Teresa Collett.

This is what White had to say.

“Rosa Parks did not move to the front of the bus to support sodomy.”

“Studies also show that the average homosexual has hundreds of sexual partners in his lifetime… and I repeat hundreds.”

“I’m here today to tell you that homosexuality and lesbian behavior is unhealthy.” Besides stating that gays and lesbians have higher rates of STDs than anywhere in the world, she also said they have “gay bowel disease.”

There is no such thing as “gay bowel disease.” It is too bad White did not credit all those “studies” because they are no where to be found. Rosa Parks is dead so she cannot speak for herself, but I could find no comment from her on gay rights period.

Then there is Theresa Collett, who is a law professor of all things. She claimed that parents would be arrested for speaking out against homosexuality.

Little did anyone know that same-sex marriage is a ploy to undermine the First Amendment. A law professor should really know better.