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Grand Rapids, March 18, 2005
Today, the Civil Law & Elections Committee of the Minnesota House, in an
extraordinary hearing taking place well away from the Capitol, voted
7-5 along party lines to support the
proposed
amendment to the Minnesota constitution to withhold legal
recognition from same-sex couples and their families.
"Many had predicted that today's committee vote, like the committee's
vote last year, would be in favor of this harmful amendment," said
OutFront Minnesota Executive Director Ann M. DeGroot in a press release issued today.
"Our community and our allies will shortly
challenge the proposal on the House floor and continue to expose the
proposal as the extreme measure it has always been." DeGroot added that
the fight against the amendment would continue in the Senate if and when
a companion bill is introduced there.
Minnesotans from all over the state showed up to
demonstrate their opposition to the anti-family amendment. The opponents
of the amendment showed their support for LGBT people and their families
by wearing "vote no – it's just fair" stickers and peacefully protesting
near the theater. The one message that rang clear from the rallies and
testimony in the hearing is that this ballot initiative promotes
division within our communities across the state. The GLBTA Alliance,
OutFront Minnesota and many other citizens spoke out for fairness and
equality for all Minnesotans. To prevent the amendment from reaching the
ballots in 2006, supporters of GLBT equality need to be actively
educating people from around the state about this issue.
In the meantime, the next step for the proposal is the
House Ways & Means Committee, which is expected to hold a
perfunctory vote soon on the very limited issue of whether to fund the
inclusion of the proposed language on the November 2006 election ballot.
Assuming this Committee votes to allocate funds for this purpose, the
proposal will then move on to the full House for a vote.
In November 2004, a number of amendment supporters were voted out of
office, and so the final vote on the proposal is difficult to predict at
this time.
It is widely expected that a companion bill will be introduced in the
Minnesota Senate, regardless of the outcome of the House vote. Last
year, an identical proposal was referred to the Senate Judiciary
Committee, which killed the measure. Although the Senate was not up for election in
2004, and consequently the committee membership remains the same, there
is no guarantee that the outcome will be the same, now that the members
are one year closer to having to stand for re-election.
OutFront Minnesota will continue to work with our allies in the House
and Senate to defeat this bill again, and to demand that the Legislature
not only stop the assaults on our community, but also explain what it
will do to protect our families. We will be sending bulletins to our
community as developments warrant – if you are not on our
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