Do We Really Want Discrimination Degrading Our MN Constitution?

The current legislature seems to have an astonishing propensity to promote solutions for issues that lack a problem to solve. In this instance, I'm talking about the proposed amendment that would ban gay marriages.

State Senator Paul Gazelka, who defeated openly gay Senator Paul Koering in a Republican primary, recently made a somewhat contradictory statement on the matter:

 "I think people want gays and lesbians to live however they choose, but they do not want to redefine marriage," Gazelka said.

Senator Gazelka doesn't seem to understand what "however they choose" means for the GLBT community. After all, government has been interfering in "however they choose" for quite some time. It's not just marriage either. It is health insurance, end of life choices, and other family matters. Choices that other Minnesotans take for granted.

This conflict is a generational thing. Younger people have learned to look beyond the traditional and religious obstacles to this issue. Older people are locked into a lifetime of religious indoctrination and a discomfort with relationships they do not fully understand.

But legislative Republicans want to go further. They want to establish, in law, a doctrine that sets apart one group and tells them that they are not allowed to choose the life partner they want. It is incredible when you think about it. The Minnesota Constitution has been held in the highest esteem as a bastion of equality and foresight. Yet, here is an attempt to contaminate and soil that document with an amendment that sets equal status back hundreds of years.

Time after time after time, the judicial branch has established that discrimination in marriage choice is unconstitutional. Yet, the Minnesota legislature wants to bypass the courts and even bypass the usual legislative process and put this amendment on the 2012 ballot, allowing the monetary forces and deep pockets of corporate and religious entities to work their will.

Minnesota has generally been an enlightened state on matters of personal choice and freedom. Frankly, individual liberty is at stake here in a very real way... and those who have decided government has interfered in personal liberty should be joining this fight as well.

Putting discrimination in the Minnesota Constitution should not be allowed to pass.

-Dave Mindeman, mnpACT!