News (USA)

Some MN Republicans join coalition to defeat anti-gay marriage amendment

Some MN Republicans join coalition to defeat anti-gay marriage amendment

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.

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?”

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