Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, Caitlin Pawlowski came to Detroit Lakes to vacation at Fair Hills Resort every summer. After graduating from Ohio State University in 2007 with a degree in finance, Pawlowski spent a year working in New Jersey.
Then, in 2009, she was offered a job at Fair Hills.
"I jumped at the chance to move to Minnesota," Pawlowski, the resort'sHuman Resources/Front Desk Manager, wrote in an email interview. "I love the lakes country and moving here was a dream come true. The life we have built in Detroit Lakes is a dream come true."
"Minnesota is my home," she added, noting that she appreciates Minnesota values like "family, love, acceptance and freedom."
She lives with her fiance and two dogs in Detroit Lakes. In many ways, the couple represents the "talented individuals who will be coming here and sharing their gifts in the workforce," that Norwegian bachelor farmer and fellow House District 4B voter Daniel Anderson believes will find marriage equality a draw for the state.
One cloud darkens the sunny skies of her good life in Minnesota: the inability to marry the love of her life, her fiance. "Why can I not commit my life to another woman and enjoy the same marriage benefits that my fellow heterosexual citizens enjoy?" she asks. "I didn't choose to love my fiancé, my love for her developed without a choice."
Pawlowski believes that the freedom to marry the person she loves is a basic human right. "Marriage and the benefits of marriage is a basic human right that should not be denied to anyone. Marriage is a commitment that should be not withheld from anyone. Love and commitment between any two people at its basis is the same among all couples regardless of gender," she said. "Marriage equality is important because love is blind and cannot be stopped."
The 27-year-old transplant thinks that her state representative, Paul Marquart (DFL-Dilworth) should vote to move HF1054,the Clark marriage equality bill, forward when it is heard in the House Ways and Means Committee today, and to vote yes when the bill is brought to the floor of the Minnesota House.
The committee will meet at 10:00 a.m. in Room 200 of the State Office Building, but take up the bill in the afternoon after the committee reconvenes following the day's floor session. Readers can watch the committee hearing at this link at The Uptake.
"Passing this bill will strengthen Minnesota's right to be called a great state," she wrote. "It will show the nation that Minnesota is on the front line of changing history. It will show that Minnesota is not afraid to do the right thing. Minnesota will be a state filled with free, happy and open-minded citizens."
"Our nation was built upon freedom for all," she added. "By not passing the bill, only some have marriage freedom while others do not. To vote no is to deny freedom for all. Why not? I cannot come up with a negative outcome to passing this bill."
If Pawlowski had a chance to sit down with opponents of the bill, she'd start by listening to their explanations for their resistance to allowing her to marry the woman she loves. "I would be respectful and listen," she wrote. "I would share my story. I would ask how love between two people can be discriminated against. I would ask how marriage equality could be threatening."
"We lead a normal, common, boring, non-threatening life," she notes. "Why can I not legally marry her and call her my wife and share all the benefits?"
Photo: Caitlin Pawlowski, her fiance G., and one of their two dogs, enjoying the good life in Minnesota's lake country.
This original story is underwritten by a sponsorship by Minnesotans United for All Families.
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