VIDEO: Same-Sex Marriage Moves Two Steps Closer to Legalization
Highlight of debate was extended back-and-forth between sponsor of bill and author of 2012 marriage amendment.
A bill legalizing same-sex marriage in Minnesota—written by a Southwest Minneapolis state Senator—passed its last hurdle before a floor vote in the state Senate Tuesday afternoon.
The Minnesota Senate Judiciary Committee approved Sen. Scott Dibble's (DFL-61) Senate File 925 on a 5-3 vote. The measure is co-sponsored by first-termSen. Branden Petersen (R-35). Later that evening, the House Judiciary Committee passed the measure's companion bill, House File 1054, sponsored by Rep. Karen Clark (DFL-62A).
A highlight of the Senate debate was extended back-and-forth between opponent Sen. Warren Limmer (R-Maple Grove) and Sen. Scott Dibble (DFL-Minneapolis), the bill's co-author. That debate starts around the 14:40 mark on the YouTube video above.
“I am overjoyed that my colleagues who serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted in favor of this bill today," Dibble wrote in a press released shortly after the vote. "Senate File 925 simply protects religious liberties and extends basic freedoms to thousands of Minnesotans who have waited too long to be granted the same opportunities and responsibilities that come with citizenship."
"When this legislation comes to floor of the Minnesota House of Representatives for a vote," Clark wrote in a second press release, "I look forward to spirited conversation with my colleagues ending in our decision to extend the basic freedom to marry to same-sex couples all across Minnesota.”
Legislative leaders have said they hope to pass a budget before giving the marriage bills their final vote, and lobby groups on either side of the issue have already begun targeting individual lawmakers.
Dibble said he expects the measure to pass, "because the values that unite us as Minnesotans are far more important than those that divide us.”
To watch video of the committee's discussion and vote on the bill, click on the video at the top of this post or watch it at the UpTake's Livestream webpage.
Sen. Dan Hall (R-Burnsville) spoke against the bill, saying he was a nice guy—not a "bigot" as some have called him—but, he said, he has an opinion.
Sen. Barb Goodwin (DFL-Columbia Heights) said she'd been hesitant in the past to give the measure full-throated support, despite being a strong supporter of same-sex marriage. Two years ago, Goodwin tried to tack a ban on all divorces onto legislation that put the marriage amendment on the 2012 ballot.
"My concern is that we need to make sure that when this goes on the [Senate] floor, that we have enough votes to pass it. I don't want us to fail. I don't want to think that this was brought up to soon," Goodwin said. "I don't want to discredit the people that went out and voted against their own religious beliefs and their own morals to not get this in the [Minnesota] Constitution because they just knew that wasn't the right thing to do. And that doesn't necessarily mean an acceptance of gay marriage."
Also voting against the bill was Sen. Julianne Ortmann, a Republican whose district includes Chaska and Chanhassen.
Also voting in favor were DFLers Richard Cohen of St. Paul, Kathy Sheran of Mankato, and Kari Dziedzic of Minneapolis.
CHDaggett
10:03 am on Wednesday, March 13, 2013
God bless Dick Cohen!!
Frank McGruber
2:50 pm on Thursday, March 14, 2013
"I look forward to spirited conversation with my colleagues ending in our decision to extend the basic freedom to marry to same-sex couples all across Minnesota.”
That conversation needs to be extended to the voting populace. Write the bill, great, but let the people vote. Otherwise you are doing everybody a disservice.
Dan Johnson
11:44 pm on Monday, March 18, 2013
Equal treatment of a minority under the law should never depend on the popular opinion of the majority. This is like a pack of wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner.
"The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections." SCOTUS
Attorneys Theodore B. Olson and David Boies wrote in their prop.8 filing: "Fourteen times the Supreme Court has stated that marriage is a fundamental right of all individuals. This case tests the proposition whether the gay and lesbian Americans among us should be counted as ‘persons’ under the 14th Amendment, or whether they constitute a permanent underclass ineligible for protection under that cornerstone of our Constitution.”
Dan Johnson
11:34 pm on Monday, March 18, 2013
"Every religion emphasizes human improvement, love, respect for others, sharing other people's suffering. On these lines every religion had more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal." The Dalai Lama
Yet treating others with respect and equality does not require any religious belief.
Non-theistic ethical and philosophic systems, like Humanism and Ethical Culture, believe in equality, fairness, and respect for others. While all belief systems have differences, all major religions, ethical systems, and philosophies agree that each person should treat others as they would themselves. Almost all of these groups have passages in their holy texts, or writings of their leaders, which promote this Ethic of Reciprocity. The most commonly known version in North America is the Golden Rule of Christianity. It is often expressed as "Do onto others as you would wish them do onto you." Or in "natural law": that "no man require to reserve to himself any right, which he is not content should be reserved to every one of the rest".
Not only is refusing to treat others as you would yourself a violation of every major ethical belief system, it is a violation of the promise of equality in the founding documents and required by Article 4 as well as the 5th and 14th amendments to the constitution