Allen J. Quist (born October 14, 1944) is a Minnesota politician, a former state representative, and a two-time candidate for governor of the state.
State representative
A Republican, Quist was first elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in November 1982. He served three terms from January 4, 1983 until January 2, 1989. He was defeated for re-election by St. Peter School Board Chair and Gustavus Adolphus College Professor Don Ostrom in November 1988. He represented the old District 23B, which included portions of Blue Earth, Brown, Le Sueur, Nicollet, and Renville counties in the south central part of the state. He chaired the Health and Human Services Subcommittee on Social Services during the 1985-1986 biennium.
In 2013, he ran in a special election to fill a vacancy in House District 19A, winning the January Republican nominating convention but losing the general election to Clark Johnson on February 12, 2013.
In December 1986, Quist's first wife, Diane, died in a car accident. He subsequently married conservative activist Julie Morse in 1987. He has ten children, nine by his first wife and one by his second.
1994 and 1998 gubernatorial runs
A stalwart conservative, Quist challenged incumbent Governor Arne Carlson in the 1994 gubernatorial election, with former U.S. Senate candidate Doug McFarland as his running mate. He campaigned on the premise that the pro-choice Carlson was too liberal to lead the Republican Party. Although he won endorsement at his party's convention, he was defeated by Carlson in the state's open primary. He ran for governor again in 1998, but withdrew before the state convention in favor of Saint Paul Mayor Norm Coleman.
Dinosaur comments
Quist is the editor of CurriculumModules.org (CMod), a children's education and learning website that "challenges the worldwide views of established education," and offers lessons that contradict modern science and history. In one of CMod’s lessons it suggests that dinosaurs lived alongside humans as recently as the 12th century. His lessons suggest that history books and science books have falsely determined that dinosaurs became extinct 66 million years ago, and that "the only reasonable explanation for the Stegosaurus carved in the stone on the wall of the Cambodian temple is that the artist had either seen a stegosaurus or had seen other art works of a stegosaurus. Either way, people and stegosaurs were living at the same time."
Political positions
Abortion
Quist believes that abortion should be a first degree homicide, and has said that "Abortion is a genuine evil act, except when used to save the mother's life, it must be legally restrained."
Quist is the author of the book The Abortion Revolution and the Sanctity of Life. In the book, Quist talks about his anti-abortion stance and the need to overturn Roe V. Wade, saying that it is "one of the most dreadful Supreme Court rulings in history," and that "a majority of the justices legalized the murder of more people in just a few years than Herod and Hitler killed in a lifetime." "If our Nation would return to Christian ethical codes, the abortion revolution would come to an end and many other evils mentioned would be largely restrained as well."
LGBT rights/marriage
During his time in the Minnesota House of Representatives, Quist campaigned against the advent of same-sex marriage in Minnesota. He led efforts against extending human rights protections to gays and lesbians, supported by former Governor Arne Carlson.
Quist also led the sponsorship of a failed bill to require AIDS testing for all marriage license applicants. Quist has drawn criticism for a past statement he made suggesting that supporting a gay counseling center at Minnesota State University, Mankato would be similar to supporting one for the Ku Klux Klan, and saying that "its presence suggests university approval for the homosexual lifestyle and the practice of sodomy... You wouldn’t have a center for the Ku Klux Klan," and that "both would be breeding grounds for evil—AIDS, in this case."
While in the Minnesota House, Quist racked up a cumulative 30 hours in the 1988 session speaking on the House floor about sex.
2010 congressional race
On November 19, 2009, Quist announced his candidacy for U.S. Representative in Minnesota's 1st Congressional District in the 2010 race against incumbent Representative Tim Walz. Quist lost the Republican primary to Minnesota State Representative Randy Demmer.
In early December 2009, Quist claimed that a marriage penalty exists in the U.S. House and Senate health care bills.