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?

I’m posting the verbiage of the marriage amendment again as a reminder of why education on this matter is so important. At first blush, when you read the words, they don’t seem particularly harmful. And when you read the original title of the amendment (Recognition of Marriage) it may even sound like a good thing.

But when people dig deeper, this amendment becomes troubling. If Minnesota were to pass this amendment, it wouldn’t recognize marriage, it would LIMIT marriage and prevent loving same-sex couples from one day receiving that recognition. It would remove all hope of any future conversation on this topic in the state of Minnesota. The only option would be to bring the discussion back to voters for yet another ballot measure, whereby we would spend even more time and more money on this discussion.

So what if this amendment doesn’t pass, then what happens? Nothing. Yup, that’s right. Marriage is already defined in the state of Minnesota as one man and one woman. If enough people say NO to discrimination in NOvember and vote this mean-spirited amendment down, we’re left with the status quo. If it passes, though, we’ll have updated our state constitution to limit the rights of Minnesotans across this great state.

The moral of my post: Help spread the word and take action! Heck, even share the words of the amendment with your friends so that more folks are exposed before election day. And feel free to use this post (or any other post on this site) as an educational tool about the amendment.

Last week, I posted that the amendment has received a new title (Limiting the status of marriage to opposite sex couples). Hopefully this new title, which removes the word Recognition, helps more people understand that these words aren’t quite as innocent as one may initially think…