Minnesota House Passes Gay Marriage Bill! Will Minnesota Become the 12th Marriage Equality State?

This is pretty exciting news! The Minnesota House of Representatives passed a same-sex marriage bill by a vote of 75-59 this afternoon! The bill will move on to the Minnesota Senate on Monday and then (assuming it passes -- and it appears to have all the votes needed to pass the Senate) will then progress to Gov. Mark Dayton (DFL). Gov. Dayton has already indicated that he will sign this bill into law.

This time last year, we were fretting over a proposed constitutional amendment banning legal recognition of same-sex marriages. Now we're seriously looking at Minnesota becoming the twelfth marriage equality state (post-Prop 8)!

This is particularly exciting for me because I spent my teen years living in Minnesota. I have lots of family in that state, just like my husband has lots of family in Massachusetts. We have no plans to move from Iowa City, but it's good to know that we could move closer to either extension of our family and know that our family won't become legally invisible once we cross the border!