Catholics Promoting Marriage Equality: Minnesota Group Produces Powerful Video

I just wrote that a majority of American Catholics solidly support the rights of gay and lesbian human beings.  Recent important evidence for this claim: this moving video produced by the group Catholics for Marriage Equality Minnesota.  

I learned of this valuable resource from Michael Bayly's stellar Wild Reed blog.  Michael lives in St. Paul, and is very active in the movement to muster Catholic support for LGBT rights in Minnesota.  As I've noted in previous postings, the Catholic bishops of Minnesota have actively lobbied for some time now for an amendment to the Minnesota constitution outlawing civil marriage between people of the same sex.  

Prior to the 2010 elections, they weighed in on this issue, sending a video attacking marriage equality to all Catholic households in the state.  The bishops' decision to make gay marriage an issue in the 2010 gubernatorial election in their state was considered strange, when the issue hadn't arisen as a key issue in the election debates.  And when only one candidate, the Republican candidate for governor Tom Emmer, had expressed opposition to marriage equality . . . .

The constitutional amendment for which the Catholic bishops of Minnesota have been lobbying is now on the ballot for the 2012 elections, and the Catholic vote will be decisive re: this constitutional amendment.  The group that has produced the video to which I link above, Catholics for Marriage Equality MN, is working to get out the message that, no matter what the bishops think or want vis-a-vis the human rights of their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, most Catholics support, love, and want inclusion (and rights) for those who are gay.

I'm particularly struck by the observation of one of those interviewed, at the end of this video.  He says,

They're [i.e., those trying to remove or block the right of civil marriage from same-sex couples] trying to protect marriage or family or both, and in actuality, they're doing exactly the opposite.  They're damaging any relationship and any family unit by the legislation they're proposing.

And that was precisely the point I wanted to make in this posting several weeks ago, following a recent trip my partner Steve and I took to Minnesota to visit his extended family there.  Today begins the month in which Steve and I met 40 years ago . . . .

The graphic is a photograph from a gathering of Catholics for Marriage Equality MN in Oct. 2010 at the Catholic cathedral in St. Paul, from Michael Bayly's Progressive Catholic Voice blog.