My buddy Bruce linked me yesterday to author Ann Bauer’s lengthy post about her disappointment (okay, shame and anger) upon returning from Washington State to live once again in Minnesota–only to find out the state that’s voting on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is not the Minnesota she used to know.
Here’s the heart of the matter, from Ann, who’s written a novel called The Forever Marriage:
We are talking about denying people access to something that is only good—for them and for society. What earthly purpose can this measure possibly serve? It will keep people who are genuinely in love from forming more stable unions, inheriting automatically in the case of one’s sudden death, and making critical medical decisions on each other’s behalf. It will interfere with many of the most basic activities of modern life: raising a family, owning real estate, getting insurance together, picking up a sick child from school.
Every bit of evidence says that gay and lesbian married couples will strengthen our communities. They will become more rooted as homeowners, PTO participants and small business owners. They will take care of each other in sickness and old age, freeing up social security and Medicare funds. From a conservative, fiscal perspective (which describes mine, by the way) if you plot gay marriage on the spreadsheet it’s a win.
And, like me, she’s likened this whole business to anti-miscegenation laws of several decades ago.
Ann says she’s so pissed that if the law passes she and her husband are going to get divorced and then remarried in Iowa.
Um, all right, then.
She’s also volunteering for Minnesotans United for All Families.
All right, then!
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