Minnesota: Celebration In The State Capitol Rotunda

Minnesota: Senate Passes Marriage Equality Bill 37-30

Joe.My.God. reports:

The Minnesota Senate will begin debate on its marriage equality bill at noon local time (1pm Eastern).   The bill is expected to pass and Gov. Mark Dayton is likely to sign it in a ceremony presently scheduled to take place tomorrow.  You can watch today’s proceedings live on the website of theStar-Tribuneand on the Senate’s official page.  You’ll probably want to save both links as high traffic often makes these streams crash.  Zoom, zoom, zoom, y’all.

Minnesota: House Homocon Robert Oscar Lopez Testifies Against Own People

Joe.My.God. reports:

Robert Oscar Lopez is one of the three homocons who filed an anti-gay Supreme Court brief against marriage equality. Today he traveled to Minnesota to once again commit a moral crime against his own family.

UPDATE: At this writing Lopez is now testifying before the state Senate, where he just declared himself to be “the gayest person in the room.”

Son of a bitch.

USA: Seven States (Or More) That Could See Marriage Equality In 2013

Click here to read Chris’ predictions.

Minnesota Governor: I’d Sign A Marriage Bill

Joe.My.God. reports:

Democratic Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton today told NPR that he will sign a marriage equality bill should one reach his desk.  

When asked about legalizing same-sex marriage after Minnesotans defeated a constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman, Dayton said he would sign a bill if it comes to him. But he said he’s unsure if the Legislature is ready to consider the issue. “I hope we’re going to get to that point. The younger generation is broadly accepting of that change and we’ll get there, it’s just a question of when,” he said.

Last year Dayton symbolically vetoed Minnesota’s ultimately failed ballot measure to place a ban on same-sex marriage in the state constitution.

USA: Minnesota Marriage Ban Falls Short

The Star Tribune reports:

The proposed marriage amendment to the Minnesota Constitution fell short of passage early Wednesday morning, according to the Associated Press.
With 98 percent of precincts reporting, the amendment had the support of only 48 percent of voters. Support for the ballot measure trailed the combined “no” votes and blank ballots by more than 100,000 votes, an amount that seem insurmountable with so few votes left to be counted.
Andy Parrish, deputy campaign manager for Minnesota for Marriage, which pushed the ban, was not ready to concede early Wednesday morning. “I think we’re going to wait for the rest of the results to come in and see what the final results are in the morning,” he said.
Heading into Election Day, recent polls had shown the measure a dead heat, but also showed amendment support edging downward for weeks.
Amendment supporters and opponents had spent the last week in an all-out blitz to fire up their diverse and fragile coalitions across the state, stringing together supporters of all ages, religious faiths and political persuasions and on Tuesday night, neither was giving an inch.
“You dug down and fought for love, with love,” Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak told hundreds of amendment opponents gathered at the RiverCentre in St. Paul late Tuesday night. “You understood compassion. This wound up being one of the most inspirational things that’s ever happened in Minnesota. Minnesota is going to be the state that’s going to show the country exactly what Minnesota values are all about.”
An early and vocal opponent of the amendment, DFL Gov. Mark Dayton said “Minnesota is better than this” and criticized the ballot initiative as the “wrong way to lead, the wrong way to govern.”
“We’re for equality,” Dayton said. “We understand the Constitution of the United States, we understand the founding premise where all men and women are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights and those certainly include the right to marry the person you love.”
Marriage amendment supporters were shutting down their operations around 1 a.m. without the victory they had been certain of earlier in the evening.
John Helmberger, chairman of Minnesota for Marriage, said “the numbers are moving in our direction. We’re going to have to close down for the night. It’s that close.”
Laurie Benson, a Catholic from Eureka Township, came to Minnesota for Marriage’s election party to watch the returns come in.
“It’s important to me because of my faith, what I’ve studied about it,” Benson said in ballroom at the Embassy Suites Hotel near the airport in Bloomington. “The statistics, the facts, the science, the reason, that children do better under a marriage for man and one man.”

USA: Reasons To Support Marriage Equality

MINNESOTA: Madonna Asks You To Say “No” To Hate

The Four 2012: Reminders (Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Washington)

The Four 2012: Google Employees For Marriage Equality

MINNESOTA: Chief Prop 8 Witness, David Blankernhorn, Urges Voters To REJECT Marriage Ban

The Four 2012: All Kinds Of Americans For Marriage Equality

MINNESOTA: Chris Kluwe For Marriage Equality

Matt Baume: Marriage News Watch

Minnesota: Sen. Al Franken & Wife For Marriage Equality