Same-Sex Marriage Vote in Minnesota - What Strategy to Defeat the Far-Right Agenda?
The Republican-dominated Minnesota legislature is placing a constitutional amendment on the 2012 ballot that would ban same-sex marriage, setting the stage for a nationally significant showdown on LGBT rights.
The question is before us: will Minnesota be just the next state in the long chain of electoral defeats for our movement? Or will we draw a line in the sand and build a mass movement uniting a majority of Minnesotans to say: “No Hate in Our State!”?
Our biggest danger is complacency. It is all too easy to trust in today’s favorable poll numbers, but we’ve seen how conservative forces can use their massive advertising budgets to stoke insecurities and fears in society.
In every state where same-sex marriage bans have been on the ballot, even where poll numbers were initially in our favor, the right-wing bigots have won. It is crucial we learn from our past defeats and go beyond the mainly defensive approach advocated by most the mainstream LGBT non-profits like Human Rights Campaign (HRC) who have led us into the recent electoral defeats.
