Family Pride: Erica and Missy

As this year’s Twin Cities Pride festival draws near, Kingfield resident Missy Weldy started to feel a little queasy when the rainbow flags began to deck downtown Minneapolis’ lamp posts. You might think it a little odd, then, to find out that she’s married to another woman.

“It feels so hypocritical to be having a party while we’re fighting this marriage amendment,” Weldy said as she and her wife Erica sat at a neighborhood breakfast joint on Friday morning.

“Sometimes, it feels like it’s all about the money,” she added, referring to a controversial decision by Target Corporation, a major sponsor of Twin Cities Pride, to take a neutral stance on the amendment seeking to ban same-sex marriage.

“Actually, my favorite moment from last Pride was the puppy petting booth” that raised money for the Minnesota Humane Society, Weldy’s wife Erica Mauter said.

A similar experience actually brought Weldy and Mauter their newest family member, a dachshund-terrier mix named Peanut Louise.

“I had given Erica a coupon for an hour of puppy petting at the Golden Valley Animal Humane Society” Weldy said. “I had just lost my dog, and we’d been saying ‘this isn’t the right time to adopt a dog.’”

“But when we met [the dog], I fell in love immediately,” Mauter added. “I was crying! I wasn’t usually a dog person, but with [the dog] most of the things that usually irritate me about dogs didn’t bother me.”

“It’s because she’s family,” Weldy replied, smiling. “You love her — even though she sheds on you.”

Indeed, in many ways, the pair are a relatively conventional young Southwest Minneapolis family. Weldy, a first grade teacher at a Bloomington elementary school, and Mauter, a chemical engineer for a company based in Eden Prarie, say they moved to Kingfield last year because most of their friends, and many of their social activites, happened in Minneapolis.

From singing in the Twin Cities Womens’ Choir, to volunteering at the Washburn Library, to attending Minnestoa Lynx games and plays, to dining out, Mauter said they found themselves driving into the city “at least once a day.”

Both said they enjoy living in Kingfield, and zipping around town on their pair of mopeds.

“We live right next to to the trifecta of baking,” Weldy said with a laugh. “It’s fantastic.”

With their family, Mauter said the fact that Minnesota doesn’t recognize same-sex couples doesn’t typically matter.

“Practically speaking,it doesn’t matter in 99 percent of what we do on any given day," she said. "But when things go wrong, it’s a big hairy deal.”