The proposed Minnesota anti-marriage amendment was voted down in the Senate Judiciary Committe today 5-4 along party lines. Its supporters will now try to bring on a vote on the Senate floor before the end of the current legislative session.
Michele Bachmann's lesbian stepsister, Helen LaFave, spoke to reporters afterward about how an amendment would hurt gay families. Coming out publicly for the first time,
LaFave said she disagrees strongly with Bachmann, R-Stillwater, the state's most visible champion of the amendment, which would ban same-sex marriage, civil unions and other legal equivalents.
"We've heard a lot of discussion about what this is all about," said LaFave, 46, of Minneapolis. "What this really is about is insurance coverage, inheritance rights and medical decision-making" for same-sex couples...
"This issue has been very hurtful to me personally, and divisive for our family."
As Eva Young points out, LaFave wrote an insightful letter to the Star Tribune about Bachmann a year ago.
Several others spoke of the real pain being caused already by the amendment's supporters. As reported by the AP via the Pioneer Press:
"The whole premise is that if we do this, gay families and gay people are somehow going to go away," said Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville. "They're not going to. They're in my neighborhood and they're in your neighborhood. A constitutional amendment isn't going to stop any of these couples from falling in love, from making commitments to each other, from starting families. The only thing it would do is take away their rights."
... Cathy Peck, a Bemidji woman with a lesbian daughter, teared up as she described the emotional wringer she's been through over the issue.
"It makes us even more fearful for our gay and lesbian children," Peck said. "When you have pronouncements from authority figures, hateful letters to the editor, hate speak on the radio - these people are talking about our precious child, who came out of my body, and it hurts."
And from the recently chastened Star Tribune:
Ann DeGroot, executive director of OutFront Minnesota, the state's leading gay and lesbian advocacy organization, said passage of a constitutional amendment would create a "caste system" for families in Minnesota, including the potential for harming unmarried heterosexual couples and single-parent families.
"We believe this constitutional amendment is an attack on families," DeGroot said. "I look forward to a time when all of us can work together on legislation that strengthens and supports all families in Minnesota."
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