Watch: Conservative lawmaker, Iraq veteran crushes GOP gay bashing

Source: RawReplay
By Stephen C. Webster

In an amazing and impassioned speech, Minnesota State Rep. and wounded Iraq veteran John Kriesel (R) stood up to fellow Republican legislators before a vote on a constitutional amendment that would prohibit future lawmakers from legalizing same sex marriage.

“If this was five, six years ago, I probably would have voted yes,” he admitted — but “everything changed,” Kriesel said, after he was wounded in Iraq.

“It woke me up. It changed me,” he explained. “…Happiness is so hard to find for people. So they find it — they find someone that makes them happy — and we want to say you can be together, you can love that person, but you can’t marry them. That’s wrong. That’s wrong and I disagree with it.”

“This amendment doesn’t represent what I went to fight for,” Kriesel insisted, before holding up a photo of a gay soldier who was killed in Iraq

More and watch the video at: http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/05/watch-conservative-lawmaker-iraq-veteran-stands-up-for-marriage-equality/

He seems to have learned the benefit of being empathetic.