Opponents of a possible change to the Minnesota Constitution known as the marriage amendment had a lot of time to prepare — and to worry — before Election Day.
A Republican-controlled Legislature had voted in May of 2011 to place the measure on the November, 2012 ballot. Voters would be asked:
“Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?”
Same-sex marriage would be on the ballot in Minnesota and three other states in 2012: Washington, Maine and Maryland. Up until then, similar measures had ended in defeat for marriage equality advocates.
While same-sex marriage was legal in some states, such as New York and Iowa, it had happened by acts of legislatures or courts. Thirty-two times the issue had been presented to a state’s voters and 32 times they had opted to limit marriage to one man and one woman. Even California voters approved Proposition 8, with similar language to Minnesota’s proposal, 52% to 48% despite trailing in pre-election polling.
Proponents in Minnesota, led by the Catholic diocese and Archbishop John Nienstedt, would hire the same consultant who led the California effort, Frank Schubert.
The streak ended on Nov. 6, 2012, when three states legalized same-sex marriage at the ballot, the first such popular vote legalizations in the United States. Minnesota rejected the marriage amendment. It needed a majority of all those casting votes in that election, and Amendment 1 received just 47.4% yes votes. It lost in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th congressional districts; it won in the 1st, 6th, 7th and 8th. In that election, Minnesota voters also blocked a measure to require voters to present photo ID at the polls.
Voters also turned both houses of the Legislature over to the DFL, and turnout driven by the marriage amendment is credited with those gains.
[image_credit]MinnPost file photo by Terry Gydesen[/image_credit][image_caption]Richard Carlbom and state Sen. Scott Dibble celebrating the defeat of the marriage amendment on November 6, 2012, at a gathering in St. Paul.[/image_caption]
[image_credit]MinnPost file photo by Terry Gydesen[/image_credit][image_caption]House bill sponsor state Rep. Karen Clark joining the rally outside the House Chamber following the 75-59 vote to legalize gay marriage.[/image_caption]
“We went from ‘oh my God,’ to ‘OH MY GOD!’” Ellison said.
A decade after voters first rejected the marriage amendment and the Legislature approved a law allowing same-sex marriages, we look back with some of the people who shaped the two historic events.
[image_credit]MinnPost file photo by Terry Gydesen[/image_credit][image_caption]Gov. Mark Dayton signing the bill legalizing same-sex marriage in Minnesota.[/image_caption]The Method
Supporters of same-sex marriage in America knew something wasn’t working. Each time a ballot measure reached voters, they lost. This happened even when polls showed them with an edge in the closing weeks of the campaign. Opponents of same-sex marriage carried the day with advertising that focused voters on what they might lose, rather than what same-sex couples might gain.
It was illustrated by what came to be known as The Princess Ad: A young girl comes home from school to excitedly tell her mother what she’d learned in school that day.
“I learned that a prince married a prince and I can marry a princess,” the girl says. A law professor then comes on screen to tell viewers that schools would teach elementary school students about gay marriage and there would be nothing they could do to object.
Talking about equal rights and equality did not undo the impact of ads like that. Beginning in 2010, the national Freedom to Marry set to work looking at research about how and why voters decide about same-sex marriage. Leading the effort was Freedom to Marry’s director of research and messaging, Thalia Zepatos, sometimes dubbed “the message guru.”
“The responses to one polling question in particular provided a big ‘aha’ moment,” stated Freedom to Marry’s history of the campaign to legalize same-sex marriage. It was an Oregon poll when voters were asked why they or “couples like me” get married and 74% said “for love and commitment.”
When the same voters were asked why same-sex couples get married, 42% said “for rights and benefits” and just 37% said “for love and commitment.” Another 22% had no answer.
“We had framed our equality narrative completely around rights and benefits from the beginning,” said Richard Carlbom, a political consultant who led the campaign in Minnesota. “So it wasn’t a surprise to us that people thought we only wanted marriage for rights and benefits. But it was an ‘aha’ moment for us to realize we need to make sure people understand that this is about love and commitment.”
The messaging then shifted from equal rights to forging a human connection.
“Gay people didn’t want to redefine marriage, as opponents asserted, they want to join it,” Freedom to Marry’s history stated.
[image_credit]MinnPost file photo by Terry Gydesen[/image_credit][image_caption]Richard Carlbom celebrating in the Capitol Rotunda following the Senate vote in 2013.[/image_caption]
It was also vital to show how heterosexual people changed their minds over time and that it was OK to do so.
The conversations
But it was hard work. While the campaign used TV testimonials from real people — a Republican couple, an Iraqi War veteran, a Lutheran minister, a suburban couple — talking about their LGBTQ family and friends, the campaign became a one-on-one effort on the phone and on doorsteps and at house parties. Volunteers — as estimated 27,000 of them — asked voters considered persuadable to “go on a journey with us” to decide that the vote wasn’t about whether gay and lesbian couples could get married but “how does this amendment reflect my values.”
A call might start with a volunteer asking, “Are you married?” and “What does marriage mean to you?” They might then ask the voter why they chose to get married. Finally, they would try to explain that same-sex couples might make the same choices for similar reasons if they could.
[image_credit]MinnPost file photo by Beth Hawkins[/image_credit][image_caption]Christian Ucles, the Minnesotans United for all Families’ Latino outreach coordinator, trained volunteers to engage in culturally tailored conversations about gay marriage.[/image_caption]
“I think a number of people listened to those ads and freaked out. But we had built such a public narrative about what this really was about, the opposition’s ads that worked in 30 other states didn’t work here,” Carlbom said.
The same campaign was run in the other three states with organizers having regular phone conferences to compare notes and share ideas, Carlbom said.
The CEO
In January of 2012, with the election still 10 months away, opponents of the marriage amendment weren’t exactly brimming with confidence. The track record of ballot measures on marriage equality wasn’t good and the fight would be expensive and emotional.
But a Star Tribune op-ed on the morning of Jan. 14 served as a moral boost both for its message and its source. The chair of one of the state’s most-successful companies who was also a member of one of its most prominent families came out against the amendment.
Marilyn Carlson Nelson cited moral, financial and personal reasons. After recounting the state’s many attributes and blessings, Nelson described the upcoming vote as another blessing, albeit one “of an unusual sort.”
“My prediction and my hope is that we will resist,” she wrote. “Our history suggests we will.”
“Fairness, righteousness and equality are strong arguments for voting against this amendment,” Nelson wrote. “But there is also a compelling economic case. As a CEO, I can say with certainty that to constitutionally mandate discrimination is bad for business and bad for the economic opportunities of all Minnesotans.”
[image_credit]MinnPost file photo by Terry Gydesen[/image_credit][image_caption]Marilyn Carlson Nelson, chair of Carlson Companies, speaking to a Senate Judiciary Committee in March 2013 in support of SF 925.[/image_caption]
“I wave goodbye to the hundreds of highly talented employees who have helped make Carlson a globally competitive and respected company,” Nelson wrote. “And, most painfully of all, I wave goodbye to my daughter.”
Nelson, who has since retired and didn’t respond to an interview request, was the first prominent business executive to weigh in, but many others followed. Carlbom described preparing economic arguments against the amendment for a meeting with the Pohlad family.
“I was 90 seconds into the business case and Jim stopped me and said, ‘Richard, we don’t care about this issue because of our businesses. We’re Minnesotans and we just don’t think this is in line with Minnesota values.”
William, Robert and James Pohlad together gave $380,000 to the Vote No campaign.
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The Hoodie
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan admits to being something of a hoarder when it comes to the paraphernalia of campaigns she’s worked on — something she says she hears about from her husband. Especially favored are the T-shirts and sweatshirts that campaign workers and volunteers wear to identify themselves on the trail.
When Flanagan arrived at the 10-year anniversary event with daughter Siobhan, the 10-year-old was wearing a blue hoodie with the orange “Vote NO” logo printed on the front. In her remarks to those gathered, Flanagan pointed out the symmetry and symbolism of that piece of clothing.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Peter Callaghan[/image_credit][image_caption]Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan with daughter Siobhan wearing Flanagan’s blue hoodie with the orange “Vote NO” logo at the 10-year anniversary event.[/image_caption]
The Wedding Planner
In his memoir “Pothole Confidential,” former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak tells the story of getting caught up in the excitement building in the rotunda of the State Capitol as the same-sex marriage bill was getting close to winning approval.
“If this thing passes,” he shouted down to the hundreds gathered to lobby for and then celebrate the passage, “come on down to City Hall and I’ll marry you.”
“Standing next to me was my aide Andy Holmaas, whose eyes got as big as saucers because he realized, much more than I did, that my offer was a lot bigger than I thought.”
“I think … I better … call…the…office,” Rybak quoted Holmaas as saying. The mayor’s director of community outreach would soon be assigned the task of putting together an event that would begin at the stroke of midnight the day the new law took effect.
“We all know that R.T., as a mayor, was extremely excitable in the best ways,” Holmaas recalled last month. “At the time, I don’t think anyone knew how much work it would be. But it was also very cool.” He remembers how many people volunteered their time and skills.
“It was people across Minneapolis saying, ‘What can we do? How can we be a part of this? How can we make people’s lives special?’”
[image_credit]MinnPost file photo by Terry Gydesen[/image_credit][image_caption]The Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus serenaded wedding guests prior to the ceremonies that began at midnight.[/image_caption]
Why start at midnight?
“Let’s do it right and let’s match this excitement,” Holmaas said. “People had been waiting for so long.”
Forty-six couples would get married in a seven-hour marathon session with the mayor using the powers vested in him by the office he would leave at the end of that year. Others were married by county district court judges and state Sen. Scott Dibble in nearby spaces including city council chambers.
The First Couple
Again, in “Pothole Confidential,” Rybak describes how he was looking for “a Jackie Robinson couple.” That meant that who broke the barrier was as important as the barrier-breaking itself. As Gov. Dayton was signing the bill on the State Capitol lawn on May 14, Rybak bumped into Cathy ten Broeke and Margaret Miles. Ten Broeke was the state director of the office to prevent and end homelessness, and Miles worked on similar issues for St. Stephen’s human services, now called Agate Housing and Services. They’d been together for 15 years and had a young son named Louie.
“When Cathy asked, almost offhandedly, whether I would marry them, I was deeply honored,” Rybak wrote. “I also immediately knew we had our Jackie Robinsons.”
Ten Broeke recalls being uncomfortable with that label.
[image_credit]MinnPost file photo by Terry Gydesen[/image_credit][image_caption]Cathy ten Broeke and Margaret Miles showing off their rings and waving to well-wishers.[/image_caption]
“The way I took that is that it wasn’t about us. It was about so much more than us. It was about everybody who, up until that moment, hadn’t been able to have the state recognize their love legally and all the rights that come with that.
“To be a symbol of that was an incredible honor,” ten Broeke said. Shortly after their wedding was completed, Al Giraud and Jeff Isaacson became the second couple married by the mayor.
Miles and ten Broeke had been married in a ceremony not recognized legally in March, 2001 at the Catholic church where they had met working on homelessness issues, something they both still do. While the priest was not able to preside, he was there and supportive, ten Broeke said. So they will celebrate their 23rd anniversary of that event before they celebrate the 10th anniversary of their marriage by Rybak.
[image_credit]MinnPost file photo by Terry Gydesen[/image_credit][image_caption]Al Giraud and Jeff Isaacson became the second couple married by the mayor.[/image_caption]
“I had to check the ‘single’ box on the sheet,” she recalled. “I had the hardest time checking that box, and I cried and told R.T. about it and he cried. I had just left a wedding where 200 people had celebrated my marriage to Margaret. It was the time of our life and it was so striking.”
That stuck in Rybak’s head and when she ran into him after the Dayton signing he told her she had to let him perform the second ceremony.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Peter Callaghan[/image_credit][image_caption]Margaret Miles and Cathy ten Broeke, the first couple married by then-Mayor R.T. Rybak, right, at the 10-year anniversary event.[/image_caption]
“Having a son, that moment was so powerful … to know that he was going to grow up in a state where our family wasn’t questioned,” she said. “It was his wedding, too.”
This story relied on the extensive reporting on the marriage amendment fight former MinnPost reporter Beth Hawkins did 10 years ago.
Thanks for a great article. I didn’t live here in 2012 and wasn’t familiar with the struggle.
I am thankful Minnesota chose the path of equality and, ten years later, we’re better for it.
Well as a supporter of VOTE NO I have to say that the bill to legalize/expand marriage in 2013 was probably a mistake. The supreme court would soon rule to expand marriage to gay people so the MN vote was unnecessary and imprudent. Imprudent because in the next election the DFL lost big time. Every single legislator in the swing districts (mostly rural) lost because the local population thought the DFL betrayed their VOTE NO assurances that “this does not mean gay marriage was legal”. These districts have been red ever since to the detriment of the entire state. It was so unnecessary. The DFL could have waited until after the SCOTUS ruling, which gave them cover to pass a legalization bill in the 2014 session and add to it a bit of religious freedom and been heroes to all. This was really the moment when the DFL gave up on rural MInnesota by being impatient disdainful of swing districts and fully metrocentric. All those weddings delayed already for years could have happened six months later without schools, kids and the poor being left behind as they were (again) in the 2014 election.
It’s one thing to say the loss of DFL votes in rural MN was worth it. It’s something else to say one had nothing to do with the other.
The Supreme Court’s ruling was by no means a certainty; in fact, I recall that it came as a surprise. It’s still not ironclad, as there are plenty of demagogues and retrograde jurists who would welcome a chance to reverse that ruling. Remember, Roe v. Wade was regarded as sacrosanct not all that long ago.
Andrew, those out state districts were mostly red prior to that time and continue to be red now. To put the onus solely on that effort is incorrect.
Outstate red voters are steeped in believing extremist conspiracies as they are continually fed shady knee-jerk sound bites by their elected representatives so as to hold them in their ‘religious’ fold.
I have lived in Hubbard county, the Park Rapids area, and one of the dark red out-state precincts you allude to for over 20 years and know how difficult it is for progressives to accomplish much out here. Therefore, when an opportunity such as the efforts of 2012 present, you have to go for it. And that is why in this last election progressives now have control of our legislature. They did not sit back and wait as you suggest.
Dennis, the district I’m in actually changed from a 52% blue to a 54% blue as a result of the 2010 census re-districting so it was not ‘red’ as you suggest but just the slightest more blue based on precinct level data analysis. The other 7 swing districts were similar I believe. If we had waited and done as I suggest that still might be the case but maybe not as we had the Trump phenomenon in the mean time…in any case it was an intentional decision by Dayton, Paul and Erin and others-they were warned. It’s too bad and an example of the DFL not being as big a tent as they could be. You need all the support you can get-watch this as the DFL struggles with small margins instead of larger ones that could have included these 8 swing districts if we played it differently in 2013. It will be interesting to see what (on our DFL) agenda does not get done because of the too close margins. Watch the ‘new swing districts’ and the social security issue-I hope we’ll listen to them or else maybe we lose these districts, too, in addition to those we lost in 2014.
All citizens of the State deserve to be represented no matter what terms you might use to describe them. The original amendment was crushed 52.5% to 47.5% with half of the Congressional Districts opposed and half in favor. The landslide then gave way to the Legislature quickly using its huge advantage to implement the new law. Congratulations are due to all of the parties involved that enacted such a strong majority opinion into law. Hopefully that law will quickly be added to the State Constitution to provide double protection against any future changes in the makeup of either the Legislature or the State Supreme Court.
Yes indeed. Democracy really requires super-majorities of [insert sliding % here greater than 51] in order to be legitimate. Except when electing a president, of course. Then minority rule is great!
Agree with his goal or not, Nienstedt’s efforts were beyond ham handed. He did not make himself available to the public at all. He did speak at a Capitol rally, but that was it. He didn’t do a single interview with any secular media. He came off as either aloof, or scared.
He did his side no favors.
We shouldn’t forget the work that Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, then either the Minneapolis Ward 3 Council Member — or just getting into politics in Senate District 59 (now SD 60) — did to raise money to fight for gay people to have their rights accepted by state law.
Jacob developed what has been known as The Big Gay Race, a marathon that took place in Minneapolis. Frey’s parents were both ballet artists; and growing up, he met a lot of gay men and women. They were welcomed into his childhood home and became respected members of his early awareness and adult social circle when he was still a child.
Several of us worked at his home in northeast Minneapolis to prepare gift bags for all of the runners. I took part in that during the prep for two years. Prominent on the west wall of his apartment above East Hennepin Avenue was a small painting of several naked lesbians in the grass. The cartoon-like piece of art added color to Frey’s home, and it spoke of his commitment to the civil rights of all people.
What still needs to be achieved is a revision of the sexual harassment law in Minnesota, which is arbitrarliy vague and has no concrete definition. While serving as an officer of the DFL, and after months of listening to news about the #MeToo Movement, I wrote to my colleagues in the DFL about being raped and molested by three women in my youth, and how this has had a discomforting affect on my comfort in intimate relations with women. My colleagues, at least one of them, considered my letters about being raped (more than one because the initial feedback was that women don’t rape men, which the CDC in 2010 has clearly proven they do, and in the millions of cases every year), as sexual harassment. Scientific American Magazine reported on 42% of one age cohort of women having the clear motive to sexually assault men before they went out for an evening.
I was banned from the DFL after 40-years of loyal service as a volunteer and lecturer about our Party in the U.S. Latin America and Europe. The women who have gained from men like myself who recognize the long-term effects of rape on people turned their backs against me and labled me a criminal for trying to open a long-needed conversation about women who are sex criminals. The woman/women who complained remains unidentified, and I wasn’t given a hearing, as DFL bylaws require. I was just told that I am never welcome at Party events again, though I worked for a number of candidates from 1979-2020. My neighbor and coworker, Walter Mondale, was a U.S. Senator, Vice President and Ambassador to Japan; and another neighbor who had an equally important affect on my sense of citizenship and fair play was Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page. Senate Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic is not open to a conversation on this element of civil rights: Protecting the accused from claims that are not sexual harassment by common sense or law.
My interest in assisting in the effort to make being gay in Minnesota acceptable by law come from my relationships with two cousins of mine who are and were gay (one of my cousins died of a head injury a year and a half ago), and because several of my friends at former Northwestern Bell Telephone Company were and are gay (two have died).
My earliest experiences with gay men led me to fear they were trying to recruit me into being gay. I was in my early 20s and heard that being around gay people could bring HIV/AIDS down upon me. That, of course, is nonsense, and one of the loves of my life, now in her residency as a pathologists at Einstein College of Medicine in New York, was a virologist for twenty years and researched HIV/AIDS for her master’s and first doctorate degrees. I was pretty naive during that period, but I learned to accept my friends for their intelligence and their interesting senses of humor. As I developed a stronger sense for my own sexuality and romantic relationships other people’s sexuality were not so cryptic to me, and I was able to accept others for their own identities.
I don’t know if The Big Gay Race is still being held in Minneapolis, but it brought people together across the sexuality spectrum. It is also interesting to note the change in Republicans’ view of homosexuality. The following paragraphs are from Pew Charitable Research on those who favor and disfavor homosexuality (2019):
Attitudes on same-sex marriage by political party identification:
“Three-quarters of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (75%) and fewer than half of Republicans and Republican leaners (44%) favor same-sex marriage.
More independents who lean toward the Democratic Party (81%) favor gay marriage than Democrats (71%). Similarly, Republican leaners are more supportive (56%) than Republicans (37%).
Support for same-sex marriage now stands at 88% among self-described liberal Democrats and Democratic leaners and 64% among conservative and moderate Democrats. Fewer conservative Republicans and Republican leaners (36%) support same-sex marriage than moderate and liberal Republicans (59%).”
Peter: AWESOME article – really well researched and written. And the photos really add a ton to the article! Thank you!
Another part of the backstory is the motivation for the GOP to put this amendment on the ballot.
In other states, the GOP had used anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives in other states to get conservative voters to the polls. They knew they wouldn’t have a serious challenger for Amy Klobuchar, the only statewide race on the ballot in 2012 (other than POTUS). They figured they’d get swamped in down ballot races, so to they needed to give conservatives a reason to show up on election day.
The voter suppression amendment was widely considered a slam dunk, and the DFL poured it’s efforts into the marriage amendment. Mostly it was Keith Ellison and Take Action Minnesota that did all the leg work turning the tide against voter suppression. In the closing days, lots of voters just figured vote no on both amendments.
Her is another summary and set of graphs detailing the acceptance of same-sex marriages by both political parties and religions. I don’t know if MinnPost will publish a link, but this is from another more recent Pew Research Center study on the topic than the summary I presented above. The problem with the graphics is that they use shades of blue in their line-graph. But the esstential data suggests that over the past few years, acceptance of same-sex marriages have wanted by both political party and by Christian religious communities.
As two of my cousins and several friends have been gay, I support their path to happiness and acceptance in the commnuity, though I am uncofortable seeing shows of affection by any sexual identity. I consider this to be a private affair and not for public consumption, though my attitudes have been marred by rude peolpe in my youth who didn’t accept my desire to show affection or receive affection either privately or publicly.
The Data is from Pew Research Center, May 14, 2019: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/
As one of the 27,000 volunteers making calls, I loved reading this article and agree with other commenters that it was very well researched and written with wonderful photos. I also read it with the same sense of relief I felt back then. I clearly remember signing up to make calls, showing up and being very impressed by the level of organization, how great the training was, how committed and positive the other volunteers were and the confidence I felt with the excellent scripts we used… but after speaking with a few too many individuals who simply quoted a Biblical verse that “PROVED” God was against gay marriage, I often left my shift worried how the vote would go. A HUGE thank you to the many other individuals I spoke with who were open to talking, listening and considering how they would vote and to those who were definitely solid supporters– your positivity helped keep us all going.
If MinnPost publishes links to other news sites, the following link from Medscape/WebMD talks about the improvement in health outcomes and lessened rates of suicide among the LGBTQ+ communities where same-sex marriages were allowed and where they were forbidden before the Respect for Marriage Act took over and the Defense of Marriage Act was struck down as being unconstitutional. Defense of Marriage Act was put into place by homophobes who thought that their anti-LGBTQ attitudes about life should rule how the rest of the commnuity must be forbidden from getting married.
To people who have not been around members of the LGBTQ community and are from sheltered backgrounds, ssame sex marriages may be a strange notion. The Old Testament speaks out against hoosexuality, but not all Jews and most Christians understand the Chist’s appearance in our world meant that we should love one another. Hatred is not espoused by Christians who really understand the message of Jesus Christ — a message which billions of people have found harmonious within their lives. Humanistic people tend to have a live and let live attitude about life, as well. We all have our comfort levels with different stimuli, but we should not adversely affect peolpe who are not doing others harm, and who are showing affection and love in a manner conducive to the consciences.
Here is the Medscape/WebMD link. Reading time is about five minutes: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/987147?src=wnl_edit_tpal&uac=439579MN&impID=5099079&faf=1#vp_2
Thank you for your contributions to this discussion, Barry.
Does the Old Testament condemn homosexuality?
A maxim of historical research is that a law never got passed to forbid a behavior that nobody was doing. Where do we see homosexual behavior in the Old Testament? In the holy places, being promoted by priests.
The civil authorities – the kings – didn’t approve of this, but it took them at least 375 years to forbid the practice (if our source is accurate). See: 1 Kings 14:24, 1 Kings 15:12, 1 Kings 22:46 and 2 Kings 23:7 (and, of course, the surrounding context).