Minnesota: Republican state Senator Branden Petersen is preparing to co-sponsor a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in the state of Minnesota, thus making this a bipartisan bill. If I remember correctly from radio reports, he plans to recruit other Minnesota Republicans. Petersen was motivated to co-sponsor this bill from a couple different fronts. First, his father-in-law has been in a same-sex relationship for roughly two decades and has been struggling with the concept of same-sex relationships for many years. Secondly, he views same-sex marriage as an inevitability and wants to be one of the folks controlling the discussion and ensuring that religious leaders won't be forced to marry gay couples against their will and to protect the children of same-sex married children.
New Jersey: Last February, the New Jersey legislature passed a marriage equality bill that was vetoed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Unfortunately, the bill did not have enough supporters within either the New Jersey House or Senate to override his veto. However, same-sex marriage supporters have apparently been working hard over the past year to gain additional legislative supporters and the bill's sponsors are beginning to think that they have enough votes to overcome Gov. Christie's veto. They are looking at a June 2013 effort. I guess they have until January 2014 to overcome that veto. It's unclear where this might go, but it's cool that New Jersey might become the 11th state to legalize same-sex marriage!
Lastly, I decided last week to start tracking "gay marriage" data being put out by Public Policy Polling. This is what I've found this week:
Montana: The PPP reports that Montana voters still oppose same-sex marriage by a margin of 49% to 43%. However, 64% of voters in that state support some form of legal recognition for its gay and lesbian residents (38% for marriage and 26% for civil unions) versus 33% against any legal recognition.