Same-Sex Marriage Rally Comes to Lynnhurst

At a small rally Wednedsday afternoon, activists with Minnesotans United for all Families came to a Southwest Minneapolis' to rally supporters as the campaigns for and against a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in Minnesota shift their efforts into higher gear as Nov. 6 appears, peeking over the next hill.

Same-sex couples receive no state-wide legal rights or recognition in Minnesota under current law. Amendment supporters say their measure is necessary to keep future legislatures and courts from legalizing same-sex marriage.

Speakers told a shade-dappled crowd of about 20 gathered under the trees near the park's wading pool that .

"What matters most to a child is whether their parent or parents is/are willing to put in the blood, sweat, and tears that it takes to raise a child," speaker Zach Wahls said

Wahls, an Iowan born into a lesbian family, is best known for his 2011 testimony to the Iowa House of Representatives against a ban on same-sex marriage there. 

The rally is part of a week-long tour that has been crisscrossing the state since Monday. Minnesotans United spokesperson Kate Brickman said the tour partly hoped to encourage volunteers and campaign workers, but also to "prepare" them for a predicted barrage of pro-amendment attack ads that are expected to start hitting the airwaves later this month.

"By its very nature, this conversation, this amendment is going to really inflame people," she told Patch, saying that most volunteers had a personal stake in the same-sex marriage fight. 

Because of that, attack ads can feel like personal attacks, she said.

"Sometimes you feel like that—'why are these people being so awful to me?'" she said. "But ten years ago, my parents were on the other side of this issue. When my sister came out, they started on a journey (to accepting and supporting her sister)."

Swati Avasthi told Patch she and her two children came out to Wednesday's rally because she and her children strongly oppose the amendment and want to get involved in resisting it.

"I'm not Christian, so why should I have to live by this" proposed amendment, asked her 14-year old son Nicholas, a student at . 

"Who is this helping," asked her 11-year old daughter Isabel, a student at .