NICK COLEMAN'S KNOWING MY PLACE: Hometown doesn't seem to reflect Lindner's views

In the past three years, Arlon Lindner has offended Jews, Buddhists, blacks, gays and I forget who else, although I don't believe I have heard him blistering Lutherans for their wimpy religion or blaming their fixation on lutefisk for the breakdown of society. Yet.

He was at it again the other day, castigating homosexuals and digging himself in deeper by the minute as he tried to explain that the Nazis really were sort of decent to homosexuals and that he just wants to keep America from becoming another Africa.

At this point, his friends might want to buy him a gold watch, give him a party and send him off into the sunset, because he's made more enemies than the Taliban. First, however, I thought I'd drive out to Corcoran, Minn., to take a tour of Lindner Land and try to figure out where he's coming from. On the way, I stopped at the Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Plymouth to see what the school, where Lindner got his master's degree in divinity, teaches about homosexuality.

"Young men should be helped to eliminate limp wrist gestures by doing pushups on their fists," advises "Becoming an Effective Christian Counselor," a book in the seminary bookstore. "They need to get a good short haircut and get rid of any feminine jewelry."

Aside from fitness and fashion tips, the book, published by Bob Jones University in 1996, is unflinching in its condemnation of homosexuality, which it defines as a "mental problem" that is "condemned by God." The book adds that, "The homosexual promotes devilish moral consequences (and) becomes increasingly corrupt as he reaches out to new contacts and new means to satisfy his perverted appetite."

Farewell to Minnesota Nice and that good old Lutheran sense of live and let live.

"God created men for women and women for men in the context of marriage," a polite young seminarian named Nathan Hitz, who was working in the bookstore, explained to me. If that's the case, Nathan, I said, where does that leave homosexuals?

"Outside of the plan of God," he said, nodding his head. "Scripture definitely teaches that it is wrong to be homosexual," he added, reading from a pocket Bible to prove it.

Nathan rightfully pointed out that he doesn't speak for the seminary. (Telephone calls to the seminary's president, the Rev. Doug McLachlan, were not returned Tuesday.) But the anti-homosexual pronouncements that have Lindner in hot water aren't unusual in conservative religious circles, where studies hinting at a biological cause of homosexuality are rejected and biblical condemnations are taken, well, as Gospel.

Lindner's objective, to strip gays and lesbians of protections under the Minnesota Human Rights Act, did not come out of the blue. But don't pin Lindner's views on the tiny town of Corcoran. Corcoran is not exactly a hotbed of anti-homosexual activism.

"He's got to be a complete idiot," said Ron Gellerman, a 61-year-old cement contractor who was having lunch Tuesday in the 10-50 Club in "downtown" Corcoran, a formerly Irish and French hamlet consisting of a couple of bars, a Catholic church and a handful of shops.

"I can't imagine anyone saying anything that dumb and getting elected," he said. "He probably doesn't believe in evolution and thinks that the Earth is flat. I bet his watch is about 50 years slow. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, and he may be right to some degree, but you don't start shooting your mouth off if you're a public figure."

"Yeah, didn't he learn anything from Jesse?" asked Mike Patnode, a 44-year-old snow-removal guy who was sitting nearby. "He's giving Corcoran a bad name."

Patnode (I promised to mention that he sang Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" at the 1995 WE Fest in Detroit Lakes to open the show for Willie Nelson), says Corcoran is like the old Andy Griffith show. "We're Andy of Mayberry out here," he said. "We're on the verge of the big city, but we haven't made our mind up whether we want to go big league like Maple Grove or stay farm country. We still got Don Knotts."

Only 20 miles from downtown Minneapolis, Corcoran has no city sewers, the winding county roads are having trouble handling the traffic generated by new housing, land prices have gone through the roof (up to $100,000 an acre) and the original residents are wary of newcomers who are more oriented to Minneapolis than to Corcoran. But living among a population dominated by farmers and new upper-income residents, the six-term Lindner, a Republican, has racked up big majorities and easy victories.

Maybe they've been too easy.

"A lot of people vote Republican here but I wouldn't know him (Lindner) from Adam's old fox," said Mike Skelly, the 76-year-old owner of the 10-50 Club, which occupies an old creamery that was built in 1854. "As far as I think, you could take the whole Legislature and put 'em in a boat and send 'em somewhere and the state would be better off."

"I voted for Arlon, but I'll think twice about voting for him again," said Joe Andres, 47, owner of the Corcoran Meat Locker, who was taking a break from making sausage. "First the Dalai Lama (Lindner, calling Buddhism a cult, boycotted the Dalai Lama's address to the Legislature in 2001), now it's this homosexual thing. When you're a representative, you're supposed to represent everybody — you're not supposed to discriminate against people. People have a right to their own religion and sexual preference.

"Last time I checked, it's still a free country."

Back in the seminary bookstore, I bought a pamphlet that explained how a Bible-based church should reach out to homosexuals. It didn't say anything about blaming them for the collapse of civilization or lying about their suffering during the Holocaust.

What it said was, "The church should surprise them with love, a sense of family, and the absence of self-righteous judgment."

Maybe that's one pamphlet Arlon Lindner hasn't read.