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Showing posts with the label Minnesota Supreme Court

The Supreme Court already ruled there’s no constitutional right to gay ‘marriage’—in 1972

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United States Supreme Court building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Have you ever heard of the 1972  U.S. Supreme Court decision in a case called  Baker v. Nelson ? If so, you are probably a lawyer, or (like me) a person who regularly reads briefs and court decisions on the issue of redefining “marriage” to include homosexual couples. If you have never heard of this case, you can be forgiven — even if you regularly read news stories about the movement for the same-sex redefinition of marriage . However,  Baker v. Nelson  is an important precedent on this issue. It was the very first case in which anyone ever asserted that the Constitution of the United States protects the right to legally “marry” a person of the same sex. In  Baker , a male couple sued a county clerk in Minnesota for denying them a marriage license in May 1970. The case made its way to the Supreme Court of Minnesota — which, on October 15, 1971, issued a ruling declarin...

Minnesota Supreme Court removes deceptive marriage amendment ballot title

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ST. PAUL, Minnesota , August 28, 2012 ( LifeSiteNews.com ) — The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Monday that two elected state officials overstepped their authority in changing the title of a marriage ballot initiative in support of traditional marriage against the will of its backers. Supporters sued after Secretary of State Mark Ritchie changed the title from “Recognition of marriage solely between one man and one woman” to “Limiting the status of marriage to opposite sex couples.” Mark Ritchie Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and ActRight Legal Foundation attorneys represented numerous state legislators as well as the committee supporting the amendment in the suit. “Minnesotans deserve to have free and fair elections, and they deserve to know precisely what they are voting for,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence, who argued before the high court as lead counsel in the case, Limmer v. Ritchie, last month. “Because the Legislature wrote a ballot title for the ma...

Minnesota says NO to gay marriage

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Image via Wikipedia A state district judge has rejected a bid by homosexual activists to overturn the state’s Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), saying that she could not ignore “binding precedent” defending the institution of marriage in Minnesota. District Judge Mary Dufresne of Hennepin County ruled Monday that a 1971 state Supreme Court precedent protected the state’s DOMA as constitutional, according to Minnesota’s  Star-Tribune . That decision, Baker vs. Nelson, had found that the law does not violate the rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution . Unless and until the Minnesota Supreme Court reverses its ruling, Dufresne concluded, “ Same-sex marriage will not exist in this state.” Three couples sued Hennepin County Registrar Jill Alverson and the State of Minnesota in May 2010 after they were refused marriage licenses. The leader of the lawsuit is Doug Benson , executive director of Marry Me Minnesota, an organization that seeks to sue the state into legalizing s...