Although the vote on the Dibble-Clark bills securing the freedom to marry for all grown-up Minnesotans won't come until after the state budget is resolved, rural Minnesotans are carrying on about the proposed legislation in editorial pages across the state.
Bluestem's favorite has to be the epistle of former state representative John Dorn to the editors of the Mankato Free Press, Hecker can marry from jail; my friends can’t at all:
Denny Hecker married his girlfriend in 2011. Hecker, a convicted felon, participated in the ceremony (his fifth) via a brief phone call from his jail cell. Judging from newspaper accounts, over 1,000 laws provided legal/financial benefits to Hecker and his spouse when they said “I Do.”
Contrast that scene with my family friend and her female partner, the legal parents of six children of various ages and backgrounds. Some were wards of the state, some were not. I think all the school details, health visits, family adjustments and social interactions would be overwhelming, but somehow the family manages and still has the energy to celebrate birthdays, enjoy holidays, and even pitch a tent in a campground from time to time. Meanwhile, Hecker has just been transferred to his eighth prison.
It would take an incredible amount of time, money, and legal expertise to empower my friends with legal accommodations that others can gain in a short ceremony. I understand that some churches will witness same-sex marriages and some will not. That is their rightful choice. But it would also be right for lawmakers in Minnesota to allow the benefits of marriage to all partners who are willing to profess their vows in whatever church or legal venue they choose. Whatever we do for the least of our brethren can be extended to the rest of our brethren. If we can’t love our neighbors as much as ourselves, we can at least love them as much as our convicted felons.
It's not just the sentiment that makes us like that letter--it's also the chance to use a Ken Avidor cartoon of Petters that shifts our gears.
Anna Ostendorf of Red Wing is more solemn in her letter to the editors of the Red Wing Eagle, Allow consenting adults to marry:
Almost 12 years ago my husband and I were married. When he asked me to marry him, no thoughts of legal or social ramifications of our marriage crossed my mind, I only thought about my love for him and how excited I was to be his wife.
When we applied for our marriage license and went through the steps to make our commitment legally binding there was no great uproar. There were no questions about our future plans for procreation or debates about whether or not we would be fit parents. There were no discussions about whether our sexual relationship was deemed appropriate by any particular religious philosophy.
No one commented on whether or not our union would be an economic benefit or burden to our state. The county clerk did not verify our genders, ask about our religion, or inquire as to whether any elements of our lifestyle would be unacceptable to others.
We simply signed the papers, paid the fee, found a person authorized by our state to perform marriages, and had a wedding that legally joined us. . . .
It seems to me to be an incredible injustice that he and I have been permitted to celebrate and define our relationship so effortlessly while other pairs of consenting adults cannot simply because their official documents denote them as being of the same sex. The time to end discrimination and allow the freedom to marry to be extended to all couples is now.
Simple Minnesota fairness. Brainerd Dispatch associate editor Mike O'Rourke writes in a column supporting same-sex marriage:
A year ago the idea of endorsing gay marriage wasn’t anywhere on this writer’s political radar. It was only when the Minnesota Legislature decided to ask Minnesota voters whether gay marriage — already illegal — should be formally banned in Minnesota’s Constitution, that I began to consider the issue. We don’t think much about rights until someone tries to take them away.
Whether one likes it or loathes it, gay marriage is the law in nine states and the District of Columbia. It’s a fact of modern day life.
In Minnesota, even without the ability to marry, gay parents continue to do their best as they raise families (either adopted children or the biological children of one partner) just as legally married couples are doing. How long do we ignore these changes in family structure and mistakenly maintain there’s only one way to raise a family? Divorced and single parents are commonplace in 2013. Are they bad parents because they may not fit a traditional mold? Or are they just imperfect — as imperfect as we know many heterosexual married partners to be?
It’s time Minnesota law allows gay partners to be legally married. Lawmakers should set aside false hysteria and hypocritical objections to this legislation.
Those objections often revolve around perceived threats to religion, families and to the institution of marriage.
Let’s be clear on one point. The bill being considered in the Minnesota Legislature pertains to the civil contract of marriage. It would not prohibit religions from continuing to decide who is eligible for marriage in itsdenominations. Those religions that bless gay marriages may continue to do so and those that decline to do so will not be compelled by this law to act otherwise. Religions may set their own rules but our civil laws are obliged to address the rights of all citizens. . . .
It's fascinating that so far, all of the letters we've found this morning objecting to extending the freedom to marry to all loving adult couples rest solely on supposedly religious grounds. And yet, the legislation rightly allows religious groups to decide for whom they will perform weddings. It's not as if any straight couple can barge into a church and demand a wedding ceremony.
That would be the federal prison system, where Mr. Hecker lives.
Cartoon: Tom Petters, prison term, potty mouth and all, can legally marry, while law-abiding LGBT folk can't. Cartoon by Ken Avidor for the City Pages.
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