Minnesota and Rhode Island legalize gay marriage
Print Edition
Dozens of gay couples began tying the knot early yesterday morning at Minneapolis City Hall as Minnesota became the latest state to legalize same-sex marriage.
The law allowed weddings to begin just after midnight, and 42 couples were expected to be married by Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak and several Hennepin County judges in the hours before dawn.
“I didn’t expect to cry quite that hard,” said a beaming Cathy ten Broeke, who with Margaret Miles was the first gay couple to be wed at City Hall.
The attending crowd burst into applause as Rybak pronounced Miles and ten Broeke married. The couple stood nearby embracing their five-year-old son, Louie.
“We do,” all three said to more cheers as they promised to be a family.
Rhode Island was joining Minnesota yesterday in becoming the 12th and 13th US states to allow gay marriage, along with the Washington capital district. The national gay rights group Freedom to Marry estimates that about 30 percent of the US population now lives in places where gay marriage is legal. The first gay weddings in Rhode Island were planned for later Thursday morning.
In Minnesota, budget officials estimated that about 5,000 gay couples would marry in the first year. Its enactment capped a fast turnabout on the issue in just over two years. After voters rejected a constitutional ban on gay marriage last fall, the state Legislature this spring moved to make it legal.
“I don’t think either of us thought we’d see this day,” said Mike Bolin, of the Minneapolis suburb of Richfield, who was marrying Jay Resch, his partner of six years, at Minneapolis City Hall.
Rhode Island becomes the last state in the northeastern New England region to allow same-sex marriage. Lawmakers in the heavily Catholic state passed the marriage law this spring, after more than 16 years of efforts by same-sex marriage supporters. Both Minnesota and Rhode Island will automatically recognize marriages performed in other states.
Bolin and Resch celebrated on Wednesday night with several hundred others at Wilde Roast Cafe along the Mississippi River north of downtown Minneapolis. Many planned to walk to City Hall for the mass nuptials.
The city of Dayton in Minnesota proclaimed yesterday to be “Freedom to Marry Day.”
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