gay marriage

The National Organization for Marriage says they will challenge any Minnesota Republican members who support gay marriage legislation.

A Republican state senator who supports legalizing gay marriage in Minnesota says he hopes to convince GOP colleagues to join him in abandoning the party's traditional stand on the issue.

Hundreds of gay marriage supporters packed Minnesota's Capitol rotunda as they start a push for its legalization by the Legislature. No official count of Thursday's crowd was immediately available but it appeared to easily exceed 1,000 people.

The group pushing a state Capitol vote to legalize gay marriage says a bill to do so currently lacks the votes to pass. The admission came in a fundraising pitch Thursday by Jake Loesch, the communications director for Minnesotans United.

The Minnesota state senator who will take the lead in that chamber on a bill to legalize gay marriage says backers will wait at least a month or two into the upcoming legislative session before they start to push it hard.

More than 500 people gathered in Minneapolis this weekend to discuss strategy for legalizing gay marriage in Minnesota. Organizer Michelle Dibblee of the Equality and Justice Summit discussed how a grass-roots campaign to pass such legislation would work.

Minnesota lawmakers got a strong pulse of where their constituents stand in the statewide vote on a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. That knowledge will give some legislators cover and others concern in future gay rights debates, including a possible push for legalization of gay marriage.

For years, foes of same-sex marriage had a potent talking point: They'd won every time the issue went to a popular vote. That winning streak has now been shattered in a multi-state electoral sweep by gay marriage supporters.

The votes on two Minnesota Constitutional amendments have tightened with about two-thirds of the state's precincts totaled.

After a long and expensive campaign about the definition of marriage, Minnesotans vote Tuesday on whether the state constitution should be amended to prohibit same-sex couples from legally marrying in the state. No matter how the vote turns out, it's not likely to end the debate in Minnesota over what kind of couples should have legal access to marriage rights.