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The recent piece on the passage of Proposition 8 and other marriage bans dealt mostly with the local gay community's reaction, rather than the status or history of gay marriage bans themselves.
Here in Minnesota the controversy is a little more than 35 years old, according to the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library.
In 1971 the Minnesota Supreme Court was one of the first in the nation to rule that Minnesota statutes prohibited gay marriage in Baker v Nelson.
Minnesota's defense of marriage act was passed in 1997, the statute states that "lawful marriage may be contracted only between persons of the opposite sex."
After the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that laws banning gay marriage were unconstitutional in 2003, states moved to amend their constitutions (that way, it's not unconstitutional anymore).
Attempts were made to pass the constitutional ban in the years between 2004 and 2006 in Minnesota, although each one failed.
After one failure, the group now known as Minnesota Majority, a conservative group, circulated a "defense of marriage pledge" supporting a constitutional ban in 2004; it was signed by Rep. Michelle Bachmann, and Gov. Tim Pawlenty among others.
Efforts at gay marriage bans are countered by activism from groups like Project 515 based in Minneapolis; the group is named for 515 Minnesota statutes that treat gay people differently than straight people.
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Minnesota Majority Thank You
Thank you Minnesota Majority for your help in defending marriage. The gays and lesbians are confused what marriage is. Through the ages it has been and will be one man and one woman.
Homosexuality is a moral issue, not a civil rights issue - Praise to all races that separate these two issues - Blacks, Mexicans, Whites, Asians who join hands together with the belief that marriage is only:
One man and One woman as it has been throughout history
Those that believe this way must speak up, be activists and donate your money now because our fight is not over.
"You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination."
Books - Desires in Conflict: Hope for Men Who Struggle with Sexual Identity; The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today; Coming Out of Homosexuality: New Freedom for Men & Women
Support - Exodus International; Stonewall Revisited; Cross Ministry; gaytostraight
The abomination....is to tell
The abomination....is to tell someone to whom can or cannot love!
If someone controls to whom to love it is because that is not love.
how easy is to say that something is immoral. who we are to define feelings as moral or immoral when gays and lesibans do just love! not hurt anyone! they just want to be treated as anyone else and live in peace... if that is immoral 'we' are the immorals ones!
"Praise to all races that
"Praise to all races that separate these two issues - Blacks, Mexicans, Whites, Asians who join hands together with the belief that marriage is only: One man and One woman as it has been throughout history."
How disappointing and worthless that gay marriage advocates are being subjected to a narrative that positions them on some great political battlefield against racial minorities. I'm gay and felt extremely let down with Prop. 8 passing, but unlike Bill O'Reilly and other demagogic instigators, to 'blame blacks' who voted in droves for the ban. I don't care what race or religion you are, gays have a legal right to marry. We can't forget the distinction between 'legal' marriage and religious matrimony. The former is Constitutionally required, while the latter represents an arena government must refrain from intruding upon. The solution that follows from that condition is simple - government marriage licenses for couples who wish to marry, and religious ceremony to or not to be provided by religious institutions that retain the right to decide who they will marry. Your church remains free to practice (or in this case, not practice) its beliefs, without absolutely imposing your dogma upon my private life, while the legal and loving partnership I desire to have affirmed by our government and those who respect me would be attainable governmentally (the license) and by a more liberated church (the ceremony, which you personally don't have to respect). We can both position ourselves in the culture we desire. Let's find ways to compromise, shouldn't both sides be able to peacefully agree on this? Ironic that a gay non-christian resorts to love, peace and unity, while the corrupt version of faith some 'christians' employ serves only to divide and conquer.
oops, for clarification this
oops, for clarification this is in response to the first comment.
Correction: ...other demagogic instigators, <>> to 'blame blacks' who...
Also, where does the author get off claiming this: "one man and one woman as it has been throughout history"?? Back that up please, or at least define 'history,' because the history I know is laden with gay sex, wholly different conceptions of 'marriage' between cultures and polygamy in some. I learned in anthropology that there are even some polygamous cultures whose women take multiple husbands. Despite its convenience, your ignorance of those facts doesn't change the nature of history.
Wow, for some reason it was
Wow, for some reason it was extremely difficult to get the words "I refuse" to appear between 'other demagogic instigators' and 'to blame blacks' in my first post.
Maybe it's time for a proposition banning religion
I'm getting really tired of these so-called religious people in this country, and their constant attempts to control our government. Constantly using the Bible to justify their hate towards other groups - first it was women, then blacks, now gays and lesbians. A vote on banning religion in this country is starting to sound pretty good nowadays! It might just push our country into something better, and force people to actually get educated, instead of just relying on being told what to do and think by their churches. For every church in this country that actually does good things for humanity, there seems to be two churches, on the other hand, that are spreading hatred and fear.
Civil Marriage completely different from Religious Marriage
I think part of the problem here is that many people conflate CIVIL marriage which is all about a CIVIL contract between two people issued by a county clerk and sacramental or religious marriage which is what happens in a church, synagogue, mosque, coven, drumming circle, friends meeting house, temple, etc. I know of no religion that endows county clerks to deem anything "sacred". They issue licenses for the state. If someone has a sacramental or religious marriage but doesn't get a marriage license from the state they are not legally married. Likewise many differently sexed couples get civil marriage licenses but forego any kind of religious or sacramental marriage. Same sex and same gender couples can already get sacramental or religious married in those religious groups which wish to do so. There is no law against a sacramental or religious marriage between people of the same sex and such a law would be unconstitutional under the federal constitution as a violation of freedom of religion as Alabama learned when a legislator actually tried to propose a law making it a crime for any licensed clergy person to perform such a ritual or celebration in Alabama.
Civil marriage involves 515 civil (legal) rights and responsibilities for a couple and their family granted by the state of Minnesota and More than 1350 civil rights and responsibilities for a couple and their family under federal law. Whatever one's personal religious or sacramental beliefs and/or practices, it is clear that denying civil marriage equality to same sex/same gender couples and their families is a denial equal protection under the law. That is why so many state courts have ruled in favor and also why people who want to deny such equal protection under the law to same sex/same gender couples and the children they are raising are so intent on amending constitutions to ban same sex/same gender marriage. Most of these people are wittlingly or unwittingly heterosexist or rather heterosupremacist in worldview which personally I find no more moral than being a white supremacist.
The oldest records of CIVIL marriages known to man are cuniform clay tablets with court records concerning marriage dissolution(divorce) and division of property after one spouses death. From these records we know that in ancient Sumeria CIVIL marriages applied equally to same sex and differently sexed couples and their families. This was true even though not all religions practiced in ancient Sumeria were tolerant of this type of difference but again, civil marriage then, as civil marriage now, was(and is) a completely different institution than sacramental or religious marriage.
Minnesota's Marriage Equality Bill
A bill which would make all of Minnesota's marriage laws gender neutral was introduced for the first time last legislative session in both the Minnesota House and Minnesota Senate. The bill was entitled the "Marriage and Family Protection Act". The state House version of the bill can be found at https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/bldbill.php?bill=H4248.0.html&se...
The state Senate version can be found at https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/bldbill.php?bill=S3880.0.html&se...
Marriage Equality Minnesota backed the bill. You can demonstrate your support for the bill by signing up at http://www.marriageequalitymn.org/
Project 515 has done some good work on the issue by researching how many civil rights and protections same sex and same gender couples are denied due to the inability to marry. However, there approach is to work on acquiring these rights one or two at a time. Some jokingly refer to it as the "515 year plan" or if you go one right beig successfully won per biennium, the "1030 year plan to equality".
I know that Project 515's current employee actually actively opposed the marriage equality bill at the capital last year because think Minnesotans are too stupid to understand the difference between a civil contract and a religious or sacramental rite.
I'd not say it is accurate to claim in an article that Project 515 supports marriage equality. At least not at his time. They do support adressing the lack of civil rights associated with the inability of same sex and same gender couples to enter into a civil marriage contract but in a bow to heterosupremacist attitudes and failing to understand that american history has demonstrated again and again that "seperate is not equal" when it comes to legal institutions, they seem happily resigned to second class status for our states same sex/same gender couples and their families as opposed to calling on the state to provide equal protection under the law.
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