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Minnesota Legislature Passes Marriage Amendment Pro-family advocates in Minnesota celebrated the news as an important first step in a long campaign to protect the definition of marriage. Tom Prichard, President of the Minnesota Family Council, praised the bill’s passage. “The institution of marriage predates government and has served as the foundation of society for thousands of years,” he said in a statement. “If marriage is to be redefined, it should only be society, speaking through the electorate who makes this decision, not judges or legislators.” Earlier this year, Indiana lawmakers approved similar legislation that would give voters in the state a chance to preserve the definition of marriage through an amendment to the state constitution. However, the Indiana bill must be approved by “two consecutive general assemblies” before it can be placed on the ballot for voters. A similar Marriage Protection Amendment bill has been introduced in the Pennsylvania General Assembly. “The vote [in the Minnesota House] . . .is further concrete evidence that the widely-reported claim that same-sex ‘marriage’ is inevitable is a lie,” said Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, in a press release. “No state in this nation has embraced same-sex ‘marriage’ since 2009, and many have explicitly rejected it. Now Minnesota, another liberal state, is on the path to enact a marriage amendment. We hope that the media will start to pay attention at what the American people are doing through their actions – they are rejecting same-sex ‘marriage’ in droves.” Minnesota is similar to North Carolina in that it is one of several states with a Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) on the books that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman but without a state constitutional amendment to protect the state’s marriage laws from being redefined by activists judges or lawmakers. If voters approve the ballot measure in November 2012, Minnesota will become the 31st state in the nation to protect the definition of marriage through a state constitutional amendment. “Despite media reports to the contrary, momentum is building for Marriage Protection Amendments in state after state,” said Bill Brooks, President of the North Carolina Family Policy Council. “Minnesotans will now get the chance to vote on the preservation of marriage in November 2012, and voters in Indiana and Pennsylvania could soon have the same opportunity. Legislation that would allow North Carolinians to vote on a Marriage Protection Amendment in November 2012 currently sits in the General Assembly, awaiting a vote, and we urge North Carolina lawmakers to take up this legislation in the coming weeks.”Related resources: Copyright © 2012. North Carolina Family Policy Council. All rights reserved.
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