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A Grim Day for Minnesota
14 years ago
For those of you that are not aware, Minnesota has been in the middle of a heated debate for the past several weeks: a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Last night at around 11:30 PM, the House passed the amendment, which means it will appear before voters on the 2012 ballot, a year and a half from now. I have no doubt that it will be voted down, but this entire issue is a major embarrassment for Minnesota and a failure of our legislative system. There are a number of reasons I feel this way:
1) Rights: Our entire governmental system is based on one thing: preventing the powerful or majority from limiting the rights of the weak or minority. Political opinions may sway and the tides may change over time, but codifying a limitation of rights into the most powerful legal document in our state is THE MOST un-American thing our legislature could possibly do. Laws can be flexible; amendments can be there for a long, long time.
2) Redundancy: There is already a law on the books banning gay marriage here. The fact that we've spent so much time and money discussing this issue is appalling. Judges in other states have already struck amendments like this down as unconstitutional, and I've yet to come across a good legislative reason that this amendment is more important than the myriad other issues facing Minnesotans today.
3) Relevance: Homosexuality is a hot topic, no doubt. However, I fail to see the "attack" on traditional marriage. I've been told many things as bisexual man, most of them unpleasant, but I still haven't heard a good reason for why my relationship threatens another person. If anyone knows one, please tell me. My friend Bill has a theory that this is all a ploy; the conservatives are rallying the base on an issue that they can all agree on. I sincerely hope that our legislators aren't using people's rights to play a political game.
I'm ashamed that this amendment is even a question in Minnesota. We're supposed to be way beyond this, and I'm not looking forward to having to seriously question whether or not I want to live here. As representative Steve Simon said, "History will judge us harshly for this."
Hopefully the voters make the right decision. I'll be protesting and getting involved all the way.
1) Rights: Our entire governmental system is based on one thing: preventing the powerful or majority from limiting the rights of the weak or minority. Political opinions may sway and the tides may change over time, but codifying a limitation of rights into the most powerful legal document in our state is THE MOST un-American thing our legislature could possibly do. Laws can be flexible; amendments can be there for a long, long time.
2) Redundancy: There is already a law on the books banning gay marriage here. The fact that we've spent so much time and money discussing this issue is appalling. Judges in other states have already struck amendments like this down as unconstitutional, and I've yet to come across a good legislative reason that this amendment is more important than the myriad other issues facing Minnesotans today.
3) Relevance: Homosexuality is a hot topic, no doubt. However, I fail to see the "attack" on traditional marriage. I've been told many things as bisexual man, most of them unpleasant, but I still haven't heard a good reason for why my relationship threatens another person. If anyone knows one, please tell me. My friend Bill has a theory that this is all a ploy; the conservatives are rallying the base on an issue that they can all agree on. I sincerely hope that our legislators aren't using people's rights to play a political game.
I'm ashamed that this amendment is even a question in Minnesota. We're supposed to be way beyond this, and I'm not looking forward to having to seriously question whether or not I want to live here. As representative Steve Simon said, "History will judge us harshly for this."
Hopefully the voters make the right decision. I'll be protesting and getting involved all the way.
You're right, though. I'm certainly not a believer in the "good old days" argument; the world is making progress towards being more accepting and understanding. Thanks for your encouragement. We'll get there someday.
@ Doraneirok, Voters won't most people who do support it won't even go and vote, most people don't have an issue with it so they feel no reason to be part of the grand solution. People really only tend to go vote on this kind of stuff if they have a major issue with it which would be the older people. Until they are all dead and gone and old values vanish with them we will not see much of a change in it. Just how things work.
To be honest though, I don't see why this is a problem in the slightest. Occam's razor applies here: rename marriage. Same-sex marriage is banned in so many places because of the religious ties: many people believe it is wrong because their religious leaders teach that. My opinion is that we should take separation of church and state to the next level and remove those religious references from the books entirely. If you use the phrase "civil union" (or any number of variants) instead, religious entities will have nothing to complain about and a greater step towards equality can be achieved.
It is frustrating how stubborn people can be sometimes.
Plus, the benefits are more than just economic. The classic example is hospital visitation rights (which we actually have in MN now, thankfully), but there are also employment, housing, death, and others.