NOM BLOG

Audio: Emmer Discusses Hamline Controversy On Local FOX Radio

 

Tom Emmer sat down with Fox News 100.3 FM radio for a roundtable discussion to talk about his experience with Hamline that is generating a great deal of attention:

Here's a partial transcript of Emmer's comments:

"...I’ve got emails from the university confirming that I was teaching and I’d been hired. But that part aside the other part that is interesting. As soon as those emails were put out in the public, all of the sudden the administration stopped talking. Which is probably good on their part because the recognize you don’t compound wrong with more wrong by going out and lying publicly that we didn’t have an agreement – we did have an agreement.

But that part aside, God bless the professors, because not only are they intolerant but they’re honest about their intolerance. They’re almost arrogant in their position. There was a gentleman who was quoted, in fact he’s the one I met at my first faculty meeting. Jim, I forget the last name [Bonilla], but Jim was quoted as saying “you’re right, the professors did object to Tom” --- by the way, [Hamline Law Professor] David Schultz, a guy who is supposedly a nonpartisan political commentator in this town. He’s the guy who was quoted in the school newspaper saying that the professors, one of their objections… [Schulz said I] should never be in that position. But he made the statement and it was quoted in writing.

Second, now you’ve got in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, I think it was later in the week you had this Jim come out and say “yeah we had two concerns. One we thought it was a bad business decision for Hamline.” Take a look at the Target example he used from the governor’s race and he said “Second, you know if you hire Tom Emmer, someone with a strident view as he has socially” – by the way, the “strident” view is, I just happen to have the opinion, my own, that marriage should be between one man and one woman. Apparently that’s very “strident” for me to believe that. He said that that has a tendency to make gays and lesbians uncomfortable. My response was this: that’s great. On the business level, perhaps the professors should start cleaning the windows in their ivory towers so they can actually see the business world that surrounds the campus because he clearly can’t. He might do a little research into Target, after that unfortunate incident during the campaign which I thought was very unfair. Target sales actually went up. More importantly, I led the other gubernatorial candidates in the age range 18-35, which professor Jim just happens to be last time I checked the target market for undergraduate students for Hamline and other universities.

So before he makes comments on business issues maybe he should research that and then I gave this, Bob, and then I’ll be done. “Hostile environment for gays and lesbians.” What about for people with my point of view? I said to the guy that asked me. I have people throwing things at me. I’m not allowed to have an opinion? I respect yours, Bob, I respect yours, Sue, but I have my own opinions and I tend to voice them. These people don’t have people throwing things at them. I’ve had people threaten me physically. You saw the email I got this week. I’ll tell you what, I also don’t see people stopping them from working. These guys went out of their way to actually cause their employer to break a contract with me, because of my political views."

10 Comments