Op-Ed: Anti-freedom to marry campaign: day late, dollars long

By Andy Eddins
May 19, 2010 at 01:48 pm

As posted by Lori Sturdevant on StarTribune.com:

"At first I thought that opponents of the freedom to marry had read the Minnesota political calendar wrong. The e-mail announcing a $200,000 statewide TV ad campaign by the National Organization for Marriage (an odd name for a group that is against letting people marry) arrived Tuesday -- one day after the Legislature adjourned for the year. The chance to put a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality on the 2010 ballot had come and gone.

"But people about to spend that kind of money don't make such mistakes. It dawned on me that the anti-freedom to marry group is not really trying to influence the Legislature -- at least not the current one.  It's trying to inject the gay rights issue into this fall's state election campaign, and drive up voter turnout among people who share its beliefs. 

..."Public opinion about this social and cultural issue is changing rapidly, and in a direction that traditionalists resist. Their desire to halt change by pounding a constitutional stake in the ground is understandable, but likely to be futile in the long run. On matters of the heart and the conscience, laws seldom have the last word."

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