Redrawing the lines on same-sex marriage

11/10/2005

Conrad Defiebre,
Star Tribune
Last update: November 9, 2005 at 8:19 PM

Hundreds of Minnesota pastors—and as many protesters—are expected to gather today at an Eden Prairie megachurch for the first skirmish in what promises to be a pivotal political and cultural controversy next year, a proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage.

The Minnesota Pastors’ Summit at Grace Church marks a new tactic in the struggle to put such an amendment on the ballot here, but one that has had stunning effects elsewhere.

Organizers of today’s event expect a big turnout of clergy, especially from outstate areas. Meanwhile, the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities and the gay-lesbian advocacy group Outfront Minnesota are planning a rally outside the church from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.

“We are receiving registrations on a daily basis,” Chuck Darrell, spokesman for the Minnesota Family Council’s Minnesota for Marriage project, said this week. “We are very encouraged by how God is moving the hearts of his shepherds.”

Support is coming from culturally conservative quarters ranging from the national Focus on Family organization to black pastors to Roman Catholic Archbishop Harry Flynn, who is scheduled to speak at an evening dinner.

On the opposing side, Outfront executive director Ann DeGroot said the protest will be peaceful, but Eden Prairie police are bracing for a crowd of up to 200.

“Our main message is that people of faith support civil marriage equality,” DeGroot said. “A lot of people of faith don’t agree that same-sex relationships are immoral. Many parents will be there.”

Senate DFL targeted

A key target of the Pastors’ Summit is the DFL state Senate majority and its leader, Sen. Dean Johnson, a Lutheran pastor in Willmar. His caucus has kept a House-passed marriage amendment from a vote by the full Senate.

Johnson said Wednesday that he declined an invitation to the conclave. “You probably will not see mainline Protestants and most Catholics present,” he said. “It will be mostly fundamentalists.”

Last month, Minnesota for Marriage brought Kansas pastor Terry Fox, who spearheaded a successful drive for a constitutional gay marriage ban in that state, to Willmar to meet with local clergy. Darrell said their polling in Willmar shows 78 percent opposition to legalizing same-sex marriage.

Nonetheless, Darrell added, “Dean Johnson has turned a deaf ear to his constituents and has chosen to listen to the radical and unproven agenda of homosexual activists. Senator Johnson likes to chastise people that believe marriage is between one man and one woman.”

Johnson, one of 10 members of the Senate DFL caucus already targeted by a Minnesota for Marriage letter-writing campaign, disputed that.

“I oppose gay marriage,” he said, noting that he voted for a 1997 state law that prohibits it.

But Johnson said most senators are leery of amending the state Constitution, especially over an issue that he labeled “one of the great dividers of our state.” Still, he said, the marriage amendment will be considered by the Senate next year, at least in committee, along with other proposed constitutional measures, such as one calling for universal health care.

Success in Kansas

Minnesota for Marriage has collected more than 50,000 petition signatures in favor of the marriage amendment, Darrell said. And it is organizing that support to put pressure on the Senate and, if the amendment is not placed on the Nov. 7, 2006, ballot, to unseat legislators who blocked it.

That’s what happened in Kansas last year after churches got behind the marriage issue, said Fox, senior pastor of the 6,600-member Immanuel Baptist Church in Wichita and a speaker at today’s summit.

“We got the movement going,” he said. “We were told to be quiet and go home and take care of our churches. But we traveled to 41 cities, registered 150,000 new voters, recruited candidates and turned over 25 percent of the Legislature.”

The Kansas marriage amendment was passed by the new Legislature and overwhelmingly approved by the voters this year, turning Fox into something of a national leader on the issue. He just returned from Texas, which on Tuesday became the 19th state to enact a marriage amendment, “and two other states have asked me to come,” he said.