Progressive groups get ready to fight Minnesota marriage amendment

While Minnesota for Marriage gears up outreach to conservative churches and pastors and recruitment of “church captains” in effort to pass a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage, Minnesotans United for All Families is doing the same with progressive people of faith. The coalition is hosting a series of trainings on how to defeat the amendment in 2012.

On Sept. 19, supporters of marriage equality will gather at Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church for a “campaign kickoff training” for people of faith. According to the invite, the event “officially begins the faith-led effort to win the freedom to marry for all loving couples in Minnesota, first by defeating the 2012 anti-marriage constitutional amendment.”

The coalition is also launching statewide trainings geared toward defeating the amendment and creating “the largest grassroots campaign this state has ever seen.”

The trainings will be in more than a dozen cities beginning Sept. 13, including Minneapolis, Moorhead, Duluth, St. Paul, Rochester, Mankato, Alexandria, Bemidji, St. Cloud and Marshall, as well as locations in the northern and southern Twin Cities suburbs.

Minnesotans United is also touting the support of four of Minnesota’s statewide political parties. The Green Party, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, the Independence Party and the Libertarian Party are all supporting the coalition’s efforts.

The coalition has also secured the support of a diverse array of organizations: several Jewish congregations and Christian churches; some of the state’s largest labor unions and federations; well-known political chapters such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Organization for Women and NARAL Pro-Choice, as well as the Minnesota’s Atheists, several social justice foundations and local businesses.