ST. PAUL, Minn. — Some prominent Minnesota Republicans are joining a coalition to raise awareness and money in an effort to defeat a proposed amendment to Minnesota’s Constitution that would ban same-sex marriage.
“I don’t think neighbors should be voting on what neighbors can and can’t do in the privacy of their own home,” said State Rep. John Kriesel, a Republican from Cottage Grove, Minn.
Minnesotans United for All Families announced a new partnership Thursday with Log Cabin Republicans and Republicans Against the Minnesota Marriage Amendment.
At a news conference, former gubernatorial candidate and long-time Republican advisor Wheelock Whitney said he will donate $10,000 to the cause and urges his friends to do the same.
“In a free society we must allow others to live according to the dictate of their own conscience,” he said.
“I have a gay son. I have a gay grandson. I love them. I’m proud of them, and I don’t like to see them discriminated against in any way,” Whitney also said, adding that he wants Minnesota “to be the first state in America to stop these [anti-gay] amendments.”
The Minnesota state legislature voted in May to approve the ballot initiate, which will go before voters in November 2012.
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The ballot question will read, “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?”