Newspaper Loses Subscribers Over Marriage Endorsement

After endorsing marriage equality, the editors of the Swift County Monitor-News in Benson, Minn., report losing a handful of subscribers.

As the Minnesota Post's David Brauer points out, the loss of five subscribers to a base of 3,000 has the same proportional weight of the Post losing 1,000 Sunday subscribers. Publisher Reed Anifson said that Swift County's population decline makes each subscriber even more crucial.

Anifson explained why they ran a pro-gay editorial in his town of religious devotees: "We open the editorial page to other points of view, and [someone] wrote, 'What the Bible said, you can't go against it.' Well, I have one very blue and one very brown eye. According to Exodus, I cannot approach the altar; I have a defect. I thought, 'What if people with two different-color eyes were treated the same way as gays?'"