Is it a bigger deal to tell a lie or to secretly tape somebody telling a lie?

Now, Sen. Dean Johnson isn't saying he told a lie. He's saying he "embellished" a conversation. And the person who taped the embellishment tells the West Central Tribune that HE didn't do anything wrong:

Brent Waldemarsen, senior pastor at Harvest Community Church of God in Willmar, acknowledged the recording of Johnson has opened up a can of worms. “Unfortunately, it’s the senator that opened it,” he said Thursday in an interview with the West Central Tribune.

In the recording made during a January meeting of the New London-Spicer Ministerial Association, Johnson says that Supreme Court justices have told him the court will not take action to overturn the state law defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

Waldemarsen said the fact that he recorded the meeting without telling Johnson should not “overshadow the fact that Senator Johnson said some things that should not have been said. That’s really what this is about,” Waldemarsen said.

And Johnson, who was in Mississippi Thursday to see off Minnesota National Guard troops headed for Iraq, tried to turn the whole thing back on the groups pushing for the anti-gay marriage amendment. MPR's Tom Scheck had that:

Johnson initially released a statement saying his comments were poorly worded. He told Minnesota Public Radio that he had informal conversations with one judge and has met with other judges on other issues. Johnson said he did nothing wrong and returned fire at his critics.

"They see Dean Johnson, the majority leader, stopping what they're trying to ram through the Minnesota Legislature. No issue is going to be rammed through the Minnesota Legislature. Every issue will be given due process," he said.

"We've heard enough from Sen. Johnson and it's time that he listened to the people of Minnesota who are saying 'let the people vote,'" countered Chuck Darrell with Minnesota for Marriage. The group has been lobbying for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in Minnesota since a Massachusetts Supreme Court allowed same sex marriages in that state in 2003.

Darrell's group has more than 80,000 signatures on a petition calling for the Senate to vote on the proposed constitutional amendment. Will all this force the Senate to vote? Stay tuned. One thing Johnson says is that he will not resign. I guess if every politician who "embellished" had to quit there would be a lot of empty seats.

And speaking of the war in Iraq, the only member of the Senate to vote against a bill making it a crime to protest at funerals was the one whose son died in Iraq. MPR's Laura McCallum has the story:

When Sen. Becky Lourey's son Matthew was killed in Iraq last year, no protesters disrupted his funeral. Lourey says if they had, she would have endured them. She says her son fought and died for the freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights, including the freedom of speech.

"We can say whatever we want to say, no matter how ugly, and we don't get thrown in jail," Lourey, DFL-Kerrick, said.

Lourey, of course, is running for governor.