On Saturday night the Republicans who control the Minnesota state legislature—Republicans who ran on jobs, Republicans who have yet to approve a budget—voted to pace a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on the ballot. Same-sex marriage is already banned in Minnesota by state statute. But if voters approve the amendment it will be harder for future legislatures to undo the ban and impossible for a judge to undo it. (You can’t find something unconstitutional if it’s, you know, right there in the constitution.)
NOM and the rest of the haters are celebrating. But I think they’ve made a mistake. We can win this one. Polls are showing rapid movement toward support for full marriage equality. A majority of Minnesotans oppose amending their state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. And poll after poll shows that a slim-but-growing majority of Americans support full marriage equality. Here’s the latest from Gallop:
Polls find broad support for marriage equality among younger voters; even younger conservative and evangelical voters support marriage equality. But older voters oppose marriage equality by wide margins and they’re much likelier to actually show up and vote. So to win this thing—to defeat this amendment—it’s going to come down to a fight to get younger voters to the polls. We’re going to need a massive GOTV effort that drives younger voters to the polls.
And we’re going to have one: the reelection campaign of Barack Obama. The anti-gay amendment is not going to be on the ballot this year, an off-year election, but in November of 2012. Thanks, Minnesota Republicans! Younger voters—along with liberals and Democrats and urbanites—vote in much greaters numbers in presidential election years. We’re going to have to raise money, and we’re going to have to fight this thing, and we’re going to have demand more from the Obama White House in the run up to this vote than we got from the Obama campaign in the run up to the Prop 8 in California. But we can win this thing.
Maggie and the rest of the haters like to brag* that their side wins every time gay marriage is on the ballot. But all winning streaks eventually come to an end, Maggie.
*They also like to ignore their loss here in Washington State, where voters rejected an effort to repeal the state’s domestic partnership law. Technically marriage wasn’t on the ballot here, but the haters made the campaign into a proxy fight about marriage equality and lost.
Believe it or not, Arizona voters actually rejected a gay marriage ban in 2006. Sadly, it was placed on the ballot again in 2008 and passed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Pro…)
Bring. It. On.
The thing is, you’re gonna win domestic partnerships in the end. Or if the U.S. decides to just do the civil-partnerships-for-everybody thing like in the UK. But marriage? Too much history and baggage associated with the word. Sorry.
There are some ways it could still be challenged in state court and of course could be challenged in federal court as Prop 8 is now, but the most important step is to NOT LET IT PASS IN THE FIRST PLACE unlike the lazy, disorganized, dishonest No on 8 campaign in California. Here’s hoping!
@3 I probably would have agreed with you… in 1995. But I think you’re wrong now.
Dan, I’ve seen how many speaking engagements you have in the next year or so. It seems to me that that would be a really good time to remind the young people in the audience how important it is for them to get out and vote. Also, post an get out the vote video about it on the IGBP. As we’ve already seen, the right person can make a difference. It certainly couldn’t hurt.
Just a thought.
Actually, confluence, the UK is revisiting the “civil partnership” thing as well, in favour of full marriage equality. And I can assure you there was plenty of “history and baggage” associated with the concept of marriage in Canada, Denmark, and elsewhere, and yet we managed to change our thinking…surely the US, which does everything better than anyone else, wouldn’t let themselves be shown up by a bunch of poutine-eating snowboarders?…. 😉
Couldn’t agree more, Dan… It might be a no-win situation at the ballot box, in the sense that defeating the measure does “get” us anything.
But the thugs have surely overplayed their hand. What will NOM say when this thing fails? Oops. Can you say, “backfire”?
Yeah, but . . . Prop 8 passed during a presidential election year with record youth turnout.
I am confident, though, that we will learn the lesson of Prop 8 and actually fight hard, rather than taking victory for granted.
@BABH
You are correct. But there was a huge trend of californians who were apathetic torwards prop 8 so they never voted on it, therefore increasing the chances of it passing. The mass rallies after helped open people’s eyes.
I think this upward trend of acceptance is the result of the older generations dieing out or retreating into their bubbles.
I don’t think this should be that hard to beat. In general, voters are more reluctant to change their constitution than to change a law on the same issue, be it gay marriage or liquor laws. In other words, a centrist voter might be persuaded to vote to make gay marriage illegal, but balk at changing the constitution.
Sure, lots of states have changed their constitutions in the last decade to exclude gay marriage, but those were all the low hanging fruit. The extremely conservative states where the bigots held huge majorities. Now they are moving on to more difficult states. Minnesota is a purple state. They have a republican majority in their legislature right now, but they also voted Al Franken to the senate three years ago, and voted for Obama. Michelle Bachman aside, most Minnesotans are generally middle-of-the-road folks.
With a well run campaign, this should be defeated handily.
Are the positive poll results coming from all voters or all likely voters? The old, the cranky and the conservative are slightly better at actually showing up to vote, so we need to work on that.
Seems odd for them to put this forward right after Minneapolis was voted gayest city in the country.
OK, as a Minnesotan, other than just voting which is obvious, what else can we do against this? What’s a good organization to volunteer for or donate to? I want to see this thing crushed in a landslide. If we whoop this thing by a solid margin that will make it far harder for them to try it again here or elsewhere.
@ Reverse Polarity . . . I am ashamed to say that my home state of Oregon passed Ballot Measure 36 in 2004. Generally speaking, the state trends pretty liberal. And yet . . .
Note at the end that Democratic Party cunt talks about “winning hearts and minds.” That’s the Democrats’ strategy: blame the Republicans and lie about the fact that the majority of the country supports marriage equality. Engage in emotional terrorism and tell voters “vote for me or you want get equality!” Then, when they get into office, DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO AVOID THE TOPIC.
No one has ever won equal rights at the ballot box or by voting for a homophobic party. Queers do NOT want equal rights. They insist on doing things that have proven to fail. Hell, Equality California just picked a new Executive Director who repeats the Gay Inc mantra of blaming the queers for their own inequality, yet he didn’t donate a damn cent to the No on 8 campaign. If you want equal rights, look to MLK, not Obama.
It’s inevitable that marriage equality will occur within the next fifteen to twenty years. Inevitable. The religious rightwing has consistently lost on every social issue that they’ve ever championed (from women’s suffrage, civil rights and prohibition to abortion, censorship and pornography), and this is certainly yet another one that they’ll be defeated on.
And then, I’ll only have my disgust of my fellow homosexuals as an excuse to avoid losing half my wealth to some fucking gold digging layabout or the vote of confidence and trust that is a prenup.
@14, true, regarding Oregon. But that was 2004. The trend has moved significantly toward acceptance of marriage equality since then. I doubt you’d get the same result if the same measure were on Oregon’s ballot next year.
@13: http://www.minnesotansunitedforallfamili…
While some people trot around thinking they are changing hearts and minds I’m going to continue keeping track of the unforgivable crimes heterosexuals commit against their own children….unlike all the horse shit hysteria that gays are accused of doing, this weekend the stories of hetero failure were ABUNDANT.
We need to begin countering the lies and fear mongering with the truth of what the supposedly superior, traditional, sacred (gawd’s BFFs) are doing: http://uppityfag.wordpress.com/2011/05/2…
Wow! I think it finally sunk in what it’s all about the 433rd time the crowd robotically chanted “Love Will Prevail!” If only we could have a chance to chant at ALL the authoritarian, repressive old people out there, I’m sure they’d come around.
Couldn’t agree more, Dan. I think the question straight voters need to be asking themselves now is “Who’s next?” As a straight Jewish voter, I don’t for a minute think that the haters trying to legitimize the marginalization of gays would hesitate to marginalize Jews if they thought they could get away with it. We either draw the line at this assault on equal protection under the law or we lose the freedoms enshrined in our constitution by inches. I think when we reframe the “debate” as a referendum on liberty, not on whether or not people think gay sex is icky, Minnesota is going to stand up and be counted on the right side of history.
Even the CEO of Focus on Family admits that they are losing.
I’m curious how this one will turn out. I wish I felt optimistic about it. Minnesota is economically liberal, but socially very conservative. They’ve elected both Tim Pawlenty and Michelle Bachmann. Other blueish midwestern states have voted in very restrictive gay marriage bans — for example, Michigan.
@3 “But marriage? Too much history and baggage associated with the word. Sorry.”
Strangely enough, Confluence, even those who are not against equal rights but just do not see how marriage equality could possibly become widely accepted are getting older and eventually die off.
Eventually, even suggesting that somehow GLTQ people are not worthy of the term marriage will be the sort of thing only whispered, or screamed at rallies, but only one one is reasonably sure of the audience.
A highly vocal set of squeaking wheels from the prairie portion of MN (less trees, more grass is how you can tell) – the kind that are actually proud of electing a loudmouth ignoramus like Bachmann – does not make a “socially very conservative” state. It’s 55/39 against such an amendment right now.
http://minnesotaindependent.com/81506/po…
@25: People thought the same thing about California, but Prop 8 still passed. And you can bet we’ll see the same influx of out-of-state money and “think of the children!” style ads.
Right before it was passed, Prop 8 was down in the polls 55-38.
http://tinyurl.com/4s7lbe
Yes, Pawlenty and Bachmann. And Franken and Wellstone and Klobuchar. And Jesse Ventura, for what it’s worth. . .
Michelle Bachmann won in one section of the state… not all of the state. I’m proudly represented by Keith Ellison, thankyouverymuch. I’ve already got my letters printed off to my reps about how come we’re talking about amending the constitution to TAKE AWAY rights when the long term care facility I work in is worried about feeding, clothing, and caring for 200 mentally ill people on the incredible shrinking state aid. I’m down for a “no.”
There are 2 critical lessons from California and the Prop 8 experience:
1. Do not neglect the ground game, and do not EVER trust that the statewide org that runs TV ads is all you need.
2. Take the fight statewide. Take it to the cornfields, take it to Duluth. If every gay person in Minnesota and every gay person who knows people in Minnesota gets on the case of all their friends and relatives to vote against an amendment… well, let’s just say that that’s a lot of votes, and they’ll all be needed.
@15: No. The woman who is speaking at the end isn’t just some representative of the “Democratic Party” (actually the MN DFL). She is a lesbian, has a partner of many years, and to my knowledge is the only out member of the MN House – the body which just voted to make it unconstitutional for the state she serves to recognize her marriage. I used to work for the MN House, and I can tell you that Representative Clark has dealt with some outrageously disrespectful comments from some of her fellow legislators, always handled herself with grace, and *always taken a lead in supporting the rights of other gay people, and all people.* You need to show her some respect.
Also, in general, MN state representatives aren’t party hacks. They don’t make big money, and they don’t represent big districts. Many knock on the door of every eligible voter in their district at least once every two years. That’s something like 18-20,000 doors in most of those districts. These legislators really do represent the people who elect them. As has been pointed out, the current batch were elected in a non-presidential year, with both voter age and the political pendulum to make them somewhat more Republican than the state as a whole.
The man standing next to Rep. Clark is Minnesota’s other out gay legislator, Sen. Scott Dibble. One of the first people out to hug the crowd (hug, not hand-shake, and Minnesotans are reserved people) was Clark’s colleague Rep. Steve Simon, whose recent impassioned defense of gay people you may remember from an earlier SLOG entry.