If the Minnesota Senate votes to legalize gay marriage next Monday, as expected, it will be the 12th state in the US to offer full marriage equality, following on the heels of Rhode Island and Delaware.
House Speaker Paul Thissen (l.) and Rep. Michael Paymar, both Democrats, walk by demonstrators on both sides of the gay marriage issue as they head to the House chamber to take up the gay marriage bill at the State Capitol, Thursday, May 9, 2013 in St. Paul, Minn.
Jim Mone / AP
EnlargeA historic vote Thursday in the Minnesota House positioned that state to become the 12th in the country to allow?gay?marriages?and the first in the Midwest to pass such a law out of its Legislature.
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Lawmakers approved it 75-59, a critical step for the measure that would allow same-sex weddings beginning this summer. It's a startling shift in the state, where just six months earlier voters turned back an effort to bangay?marriage?in the Minnesota Constitution.
The state Senate plans to consider the bill Monday and leaders expect it to pass there, too. Gov. Mark Dayton has pledged to sign it into law.
"It's not time to uncork the champagne yet. But it's chilling," Rep. Steve Simon, a suburban Democrat who backed the bill, said at a raucous rally in the state Capitol rotunda minutes after the vote.
Rep. Karen Clark, the bill's sponsor, said her only goal was equal treatment under state law for same-sex couples. In a deeply personal speech, the Minneapolis Democrat talked of the support she got from her own family after coming out as?gay?decades ago.
"My family knew firsthand that same sex couples pay our taxes, we vote, we serve in the military, we take care of our kids and our elders and we run businesses in Minnesota," she said.
Hundreds of supporters and opponents gathered outside the House chamber up to and during the debate, chanting and waving signs. They sang "We Shall Overcome" and the John Lennon song "Give Peace a Chance" ? substituting the word "love" for "peace."
Four of the House's 61 Republicans voted for the bill, while two of its 73 Democrats voted no. None of the four Republicans committed support beforehand; one, Rep. Jenifer Loon, said she made up her mind during the three-hour House debate, in which lawmakers listened with rapt attention while their colleagues spoke.
"There comes a time when you just have to set politics aside and decide in your gut what is the right thing to do," said Loon, whose suburban district southwest of Minneapolis voted strongly against last fall'sgay?marriage?ban. The other Republicans to vote for?gay?marriage?also hail from suburban or exurban districts: Pat Garofalo of Farmington, David FitzSimmons of Albertville and Andrea Kieffer of Woodbury.
The two Democrats who voted no, Patti Fritz of Faribault and Mary Sawatzky of Willmar, represent largely rural districts where the?gay?marriage?ban was backed by a majority of voters. But most of the Democrats from rural, more socially conservative areas ended up voting for the bill.
Opponents argued it would alter a centuries-old conception of?marriage, and leave those people opposed for religious reasons tarred as bigots.
"We're not. We're not," said Rep. Kelby Woodard, a Republican from Belle Plaine. "These are people with deeply held beliefs, including myself."
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