Marriage in Minnesota: Conservative In-Fighting

Minnesota already has a law against same-sex marriage on the books statutorily. Despite this, GOP legislators have put forth a constitutional ban on SSM which has already passed the State Senate (and will likely pass the house, both chambers are controlled by Republicans). The idea behind a constitutional ban being to preclude any judicial rulings in favour of having/recognizing same-sex marriages. None of this is a surprise.

The surprise is the degree of in-fighting taking place in conservative circles in the state.

Conventional wisdom would say that rank-and-file Republicans would be all for this legislation. This does not seem to be the case. In this particular front on the marriage battle, it seems that a lot of the conservatives are actually “small government” conservatives with a good deal of ideological consistency. Government should stay out of people’s lives, including saying who can marry whom. It is not just the usual suspects (I.e. conservative gay groups like the Log Cabin Republicans of Minnesota for instance). A conservative radio host, Ben Kruse got into a debate with a member of a Minnesota “family” association, and conservative radio is not really known as being a friend to pro-gay causes. State Assemblyman John Kriesel said, “I look at it as: We are all equal.” Not many Republican elected officials have taken this position on same-sex marriage (I’m hard pressed to think of one). Libertarian leaning conservatives have likewise sided against a constitutional marriage ban. Minnesotans for Limited Government, which is a conservative political action committee, came out against it earlier this month.

From my perspective, this ideological consistency is quite refreshing.

All too often, we hear conservatives say they are for small government in one breath, and in the next, they say same-sex marriage is wrong and talk about banning it statutorily or constitutionally. Those two things simply are not compatible. If government should be in our lives as little as possible, why should it dictate whether or not two consenting adults can get married under the law?

What is unfortunate is that elected Republicans will completely ignore this.

The voting on this ban is primarily along party lines. Even though Governor Mark Dayton is a pro-gay Democrat, this ban is going to completely bypass him (this is how it works in Minnesota) so he can not veto the measure. With both legislative houses controlled by Republicans, it will head to the ballot. That’s the bad news. The good news, such as it is, is that a poll that came out recently says that Minnesotans are against the ban 55% to 39% for it.  Apparently, republicans are not just out of touch with major elements of their party, but are out of touch with Minnesotans in general. Let us hope that, come election day, these numbers hold or improve and that fair minded Minnesotans show up to the polls.