The Duluth News Tribune panned the Republicans’ plan to put an anti-gay marriage amendment on the ballot in 2012. The paper’s editorial board said the idea is a distraction much like the faux controversy over President Obama’s borth certificate. The Albert Lea Tribune criticized the amendment on Wednesday. Here’s a snippet of what the Duluth News Tribune had to say:

Few precious days are left in Minnesota’s legislative session, with a budget gap still unfilled and still totaling in the billions of dollars. Yet some lawmakers in St. Paul are focusing on — gay marriage?

It’s not like any Minnesotan should have been surprised by an effort this year to put the gay-marriage issue in front of voters. Such efforts have failed in the past when Democrats had control of at least one of the legislative chambers. Republicans control both now, for the first time in 38 years, so expect the following question on your fall 2012 ballot: “Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?”

So let’s give these matters the blip of attention they deserve. But then let’s please get back to fixing the financial health of our state, to ending wars, to curbing out-of-control spending and to other truly serious matters.