LGBT Activists Question Target’s New Giving Policies

Last week, Target Corp announced what some are billing as a major change in their corporate giving policies, in an attempt to avoid a repeat of last summer’s public relations fiasco, following their donation of $150,000 to anti-LGBT Republican Tom Emmer’s campaign for Governor. However, at least one LGBT political group is skeptical that the changes will prevent similar anti-LGBT actions by the company.

Target would not comment on specific questions for this story, but spokesperson Jessica Carlson said the policy revisions came out of last year’s widespread protests against the donation.

“During and immediately following the 2010 U.S. election cycle, Target undertook a review of its political giving policies and practices,” Carlson said. “As part of this process, Target has established a Policy Committee consisting of our most senior executives to guide decision-making related to financial support of political activities.”

According to the company’s website, the Policy Committee will consider both “the interests of our guests, team members, shareholders and other stakeholders” along with the company’s “business interests” when deciding if a particular political contribution would be in Target’s best interests.

It’s that specific language that Russel Roybal, of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said would protect the LGBT community in the future.

“Obviously, they’ve taken seriously the concerns people had” about last summer’s donation, Roybal told TheColu.mn. “This policy is a signal that they recognize that and they value their LGBT employees, and these groups and other resource groups [representing other minority Target employees] will have a seat at the table.”

Dot Betsler of Twin Cities Pride echoed Roybal, saying “this is consistent with the conversations we’ve had with Target. Their LGBT Business Council has a place at the decision-making table now.”

Roybal said that, while Target’s policy changes were the result of internal deliberations at the company, and that the Task Force did not help write them, they did encourage Target to create a policy that would prevent a repeat of last summer.

“You can only create change by engaging in the conversation and being honest,” Roybal said. “We told Target ‘the decision you made we think is wrong, and here’s why, and here’s how you can fix it and use us as a resource and figure out a solution that not only leaves the community in a better place but leaves [Target] in a better place.’”

While TC Pride – which counts Target as a major sponsor – and the Task Force are content to declare victory, others in Minnesota aren’t so sure.

Randi Reitan, a Rochester-area pro-LGBT activist who led a high-profile boycott of Target last summer, isn’t buying Target’s alleged change of heart, she told The Minnesota Independent. For her, it’s still a major problem that Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel, a conservative Christian, is still in charge. Because of this, she said, she will continue her boycott.

Join The Impact, a Minneapolis-based activist group that grew out of anti-Proposition 8 protests in 2008, says they don’t see anything in the new policy that would explicitly prevent another big corporate donation to an anti-LGBT politician. Calling the new policy “an ineffective policy of restraint,” JTI member Phillip Knoll told TheColu.mn’s Andy Birkey that the organization saw a “huge conflict of interest.”

“Giving decisions are going to be made by the same conservative executives who each made the maximum political donations to Tom Emmer and Michele Bachmann from their personal accounts,” Knoll said. “This policy gives no proof that Target will refrain from making further damaging donations.”

At the heart of the problem, Knoll said, is Target’s presence in politics.

“I am reminded of the message given loud and clear by an outspoken marching-band flash-mob in a Target store last year: ‘Target Ain’t People So Why Should They Be Allowed To Play Around With Our Democracy?’” Knoll said. “Fundamentally, a for-profit retailer just isn’t properly equipped to participate in the political arena. They are good at making money, not making policy. And it should stay that way.”

Season Of Leadership Change

It’s the season for leadership change at several Minnesota LGBT non-profits: Shades of Yellow and the Trans Youth Support network are nearing the ends of their search for new Executive Directors, and local stalwart Pfund Foundation has announced an unusual choice to replace outgoing ED Gregg Grinley: Co-Directors.

The Trans Youth Support Network

“It’s definitely a little strange” being TYSN’s interim leader, said Katie Burgess. “It’s only been a couple of years since I stopped identifying as a youth.”

TYSN grew out of District 202 several years ago, and aims to help providers who serve trans Minnesotans better their services.

“We said, we don’t need to establish this giant center for queer and trans folks,” Burgess said. “Why don’t we just connect them [service providers] and train them to better service the youth community instead of having to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.”

Burgess described herself as a bit of a reluctant leader at first, saying she was “backed into a corner” by board members and other very active volunteers when former ED Ryan Li Dahlstrom left last year, and convinced to accept temporary leadership of the organization as a new, permanent director was found.

“They told me ‘You’ve been organizing for years! Take it!’” she laughed, outlining her relative lack of traditional non-profit leadership experience up to this point. “But I’d only washed dishes for 10 years, and I’d had hardly any grant management experience,” short of a brief stint as the interim Director of the Minnesota Trans Health Coalition several years ago.

Still, Burgess says the transition has been fairly smooth.  TYSN is now ensconced in its new offices and drop-in space – shared with RARE Productions and the MNTHC’s Shot Clinic – and Burgess says her main focus is on involving as much of TYSN’s membership in the ED selection process as possible, and in building up the group’s youth membership.

“We want to build a model bottom-up process for decision-making, for setting priorities and policy,” Burgess said.

Shades of Yellow

At Shades of Yellow, another rising star on the Twin Cities’ LGBT nonprofit scene, interim Executive Director Oskar Ly says SOY is following a similar approach in trying to include a broad swath of the Hmong LGBT community in the search for former ED and SOY founder Kevin Xiong’s replacement.

Ly, who also works as a fashion designer and a hip-hop artist in her spare time, said that five leaders within the organization and five community members have spent the last several months searching for not just a new ED, but re-thinking the entire way SOY is operated.

“We want to come up with an organizational scheme that looks at how power, authority, and responsibility is shared throughout the organization, the community, and the board,” Ly said.

A short list of candidates, and the fruits of this discussion are scheduled to be presented at next week’s Hmong New Year celebrations and the crowning of this year’s SOY Ambassador at Busavanh in St Paul.

While SOY was founded to serve the entire Hmong LGBT community, Ly said they were putting a strong focus on reaching out to queer Hmong youth.

“We’re asking ‘what do they need?’” Ly said. “Most Gay Straight Alliances in area schools haven’t really reached out to them.”

“I don’t think they’re intentionally alienating queer youth or Hmong queer youth,” Ly added. “I’m just not sure they’re aware of how to do the work.”

That work, Ly explained, is pretty complicated. There is even no positive Hmong word that can be used as an equivalent label for LGBT, akin to the term “Two-Spirit” that many queer Native Americans have taken on. Most of all, though, any GSAs trying to reach out to Hmong LGBT youth would have to tangle with difficult cultural identity issues that they aren’t normally equipped to deal with. Instead, Ly said, SOY is trying to work with Asian-American and Hmong student groups and multicultural clubs at schools in the Twin Cities in order to create more accepting and welcoming environments there.

“More often,” Ly said, “LGBTQ youth of color identify with their race first, and sexual identity second. Not always, of course but it’s very common.”

PFund Foundation

PFund may be the first Minnesota LGBT nonprofit to not only hire two executive directors to share one post, but to hire two EDs who also raise chickens in their backyard.

“We’re building a collective brain,” said Kate Eubank, one half of Pfund’s new leadership team. “Susan [Raffo] and I were sitting around her kitchen table, and someone said ‘what if we both applied together…No, really! what if we did it together?”

Susan Cogger, PFund’s communications director, says that other similar foundations, such as Colorado’s Chinook Fund, have used a job-share leadership model with success in the past. Part of the attraction, Raffo says is the flexibility it allows her, as a parent. At the same time, it also benefits PFund, she says, by allowing either herself or Eubank to travel PFund’s turf across the Upper Midwest, meeting with community members, grantees, and other activists while the other holds the fort in Minneapolis, tending to administrative duties.

“We’ve talked about wanting to have conversations about regionalism and…stepping outside our urban queer identity,” said Eubank

Eubank and Raffo say they are both excited to expand the foundation’s work, and are planning “listening sessions,” organized by zip code, to find out more about the needs of the area’s LGBT communities.

And the chickens? A few days before TheColu.mn interviewed Raffo and Eubank, they had all recently been turned into dinner.

“Our hobbies are connected to PFund, in a certain way,” said Raffo. “How do we build sustainability, how do we share resources, and how do we build communities while fulfilling everyone’s needs?”

UPDATE (2/18/11): Looks like this is a real week for staff turnover – both long-time Field Director Kelly Lewis at OutFront and PFund’s similarly long-serving Director of Development and Communications Susan Cogger have announced their resignations as they move on to other projects. In an email to supporters, OutFront said Lewis will be pursuing graduate school, while Cogger emailed TheColu.mn to say she’ll be resigning, effective February 25th, and will be searching for a similar development position.

“I’ve accomplished what I set out to at PFund,” Cogger wrote, “[I've helped] doubled revenue from individual donors, secured our first corporate sponsorships (RBC and UHG,) and created two successful branded events—Moxie Awards and the Cabaret.”

Ethel Merman For Equality

In 2011, if someone told you old Ethel Merman songs could have a part in positive social change, would you believe them?

After a fashion, that’s what Al Justiniano, artistic director of St Paul’s Teatro del Pueblo will be trying to do with Teatro’s annual Political Theater Festival, running this weekend and next. Alongside “Aliens, Immigrants, and Other Evildoers,” the festival will feature “¡Gaytino!,” a one-man show written and performed by Los Angeles-based actor and director Daniel Guererro, about growing up as a gay, Latino, baby boomer. Teatro is using a $7,000 grant from the PFund Foundation to produce the show.

But it’s exactly Guererro’s age and somewhat dated cultural references that Justiniano says will help spark a discussion of homophobia within the Twin Cities’ Latino community.

“[Guererro’s] generation is one of the very toughest in our community when it comes to homophobia,” Justiniano told TheColu.mn. Like most young people across the nation, Justiniano says he thinks young Latnios are more likely to be accepting, as they are growing up surrounded by many more positive portrayals of LGBT people than their parents.

“His father [Eduardo “Lalo” Guererro] was one of the most famous Mexican-American singers of his generation. I think he can touch boomers like that,” Justiniano said. “We’re trying to educated subtly, without lecturing.”

Justiniano says Guererro’s performance will be followed by structured discussion, where the actor himself will take part. To make sure the show won’t be preaching to an audience of LGBT-rights supporters, Justiniano says Teatro will be working through community organizations and using other approaches to make sure a wide swath of the community comes to the festival. He was inspired to put the show on, he says, by former gay, lesbian, and bisexual coworkers from Latin America who had to hide that part of their identity when going home to conservative parents and older family members.

“It breaks my heart,” he said.

Gaytino runs February 24th through 27th at St Paul’s Gremlin Theater.

Minnesota Log Cabins See Hope For Rights This Session

The new legislature has arrived, and the question on everyone’s minds is: when will Republican legislators, despite hints that the state and national parties may be starting to move away from marriage as their classic wedge issue, launch an attempt to put a constitutional ban on same-gender marriage on the 2012 ballot? A group of LGBTA Minnesota conservatives say they believe legislators will stay focused on economic issues, but they aren’t hedging their bets, and will be lobbying the new Republican majorities in the state House and Senate to try and defeat any attempt at putting an amendment on the ballot. However, it’s an open question how much pull the group will have over their traditionally anti-LGBT party colleagues.

“The incoming Majority Leader [of the state Senate] and Speaker [of the state House of Representatives] have made it crystal clear they’re not going to be focusing on social issues,” said Mark Kneif, chair of the Minnesota Log Cabin Republicans, in an interview with TheColu.mn last week. “The Minnesota Family Council is pushing that…but I don’t think they’ll get much traction.”

Despite the Republican Party’s long-standing ties with the Christian Right, many Minnesota GOP leaders have tried to distance themselves from social issues, claiming their popular mandate only included fixing the state’s budget deficit and spurring economic recovery. Nationally, groups like the Conservative Political Action Conference have started to welcome small LGBT Republican groups like GOProud, much to the consternation of some conservative Christian groups.

Jimmy LaSilvia, head of GOProud, says he thinks that “we’re seeing that the few [anti-LGBT conservatives] are are being shown for what they are, and they are very few.”

“I’ve known for a long long time that not all conservatives are anti-gay bigots…and not all gays are liberal,” he told TheColu.mn last week.

LaSilvia suggested a nationally-observed generational shift in attitudes towards sympathy for LGB rights causes was changing the political calculus at GOP headquarters.

“More and more Americans – conservative, liberal – know gay people, and everyone has gay people in their lives now,” he said. “I certainly see it among young people as more and more people feel comfortable living their lives as they are.”

In Minnesota, at least some incoming Republican state legislators, like Sen. Paul Gazelka (R-Brainerd), pushed an anti-marriage equality message in their 2010 campaigns, alongside the party’s overall emphasis on deficits and “jobs, jobs, jobs,” and the Catholic Archbishop of Minneapolis and St Paul, John Nienstedt, infamously sent parishioners DVDs where he called for a ballot measure pushing a constitutional amendment to ban same-gender marriage.

The Log Cabin Republicans’ Kneif said he is placing his faith in incoming House Speaker Kurt Zellers (R-Maple Grove) and Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch (R-Buffalo), but he and other members of the group will also lobby rank-and-file Republican members of the legislature to support LGBT rights.

“They’ve been on-message on fiscal issues 100% don’t think they’ve talked about social issues since the election,” he said. “That’s going to be in their best interest to focus on fiscal issues: that’s what a vast majority of people want, and that’s what we need to have happen.”

Kneif acknowledged that his group had their work cut out for them.

“We do have a lot of work to do to continue to educate new and existing members” of the legislature, he said. “They’ve been fed a lot of false information [about LGBT people] by the Family Council for a number of years.”

Kneif said the Log Cabin Republicans would try to personalize LGBT rights issues for the members, using an approach that larger groups like OutFront Minnesota have relied on in trying to win over individual voters.

“There’s a fast difference between a person’s beliefs on GLBT equality when they know someone personally who’s gay,” Kneif said.

By building these personal relationships with individual GOP legislators, he said he hoped to give them visceral examples of the intense personal consequences any ban on same-gender marriage would have, and Kneif predicted that his group would have an easier time than more prominent LGBT-rights groups in the state, because they would be dealing with their fellow conservatives.

“The other equality groups in MN have been extraordinarily partisan,” he said.

In an email to TheColu.mn on Wednesday, an OutFront activist pointed out that the Log Cabin Republicans’ strategy has worked in the past, but cautioned that unlike larger interest groups, they would have a hard time forcing or enticing legislators into voting for or against a measure.

“The gay GOP groups I’ve found…just don’t have the numbers to be influential — neither sheer numbers of voters, nor heavy-hitting donors,” Adam Robbins wrote. “Like GOProud, I expect they can piss people off, but not really twist any arms.”

Robbins added that the Log Cabin Republicans’ approach has worked in at least some cases in the past, and would likely work with legislators who are undecided or “in the middle” on LGBT rights issues.

“I don’t have any names or stories at the tip of my tongue,” Robbins wrote, “but there are definitely some — some — legislators who have changed their positions after interacting with LGBT people. And then there are legislators like [the Republican state Senator from Maple Grove, Warren] Limmer who seem impervious to that tactic.”

President Signs DADT Repeal: What Next?

The mood in many quarters of the LGBT community is jubilant today, after President Barack Obama signed a bill this morning repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to cheers of “USA! USA!” and “Enlist us now!”

Along with the President, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, a champion of the repeal effort, received standing ovations at the signing ceremony at the Interior Department headquarters in Washington D.C. Even Senator Harry Reid, long vilified by many LGBT political commentators for seemingly risking the fate of the repeal effort with his political tactics, is being proclaimed a hero for those same delays and risky votes.

However, this doesn’t mean that every LGB servicemember can bust open closet this afternoon, and not just because Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and at least one Virginia state legislator want to try to ban LGB Americans from the Virginia National Guard in a fit of Tenth Amendment pique. The US military still has to officially change its own DADT-based regulations, and train officers and enlisted personel in on what the new rules are following the law’s repeal, and like any large bureaucracy, it moves more slowly than any President’s pen.

There are a few clues, though, as to what a post-DADT military will look like for LGB servicemembers (numerous regulations still prohibit openly transgender Americans from enlisting in the military and make open service difficult for transgender servicemembers), courtesy of recommendations from the Pentagon Working Group’s year-long study of how to carry out a repeal.

After eliminating the regulations mandating a discharge for “homosexual conduct,” the report directs the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force to make sure policies regarding public displays of affection (PDA), dress and appearance, unprofessional relationships, and harassment are updated to be “sexual orientation neutral,” and explicitly ban harassment, discrimination, and, interestingly, “sex stereotyping” based on sexual orientation

Responding to concerns from some evangelical Christian chaplains that they would not want to minister to openly LGB servicemembers, the report recommends military leaders re-affirm the principle that a unit’s chaplain is required to minister to everyone in the unit – whether they are Bahá’í or bisexual. Under the working group’s recommendations, commanders would also be reminded of the consequences of failing to take action on claims of discrimination based on sexual orientation.

While successive heads of the Marine Corps have said they believe LGB troops should shower and sleep separately from straight troops, the report recommended agains this, and against letting servicemembers leave the military if they couldn’t handle serving oposite an out LGB colleague.

Lastly, while the federal Defense of Marriage Act prohibits the Pentagon from recognizing troops’ same-gender partners as a couple, servicemembers will be allowed to designate unmarried partners as recipients of their benefits, as in any straight, unmarried domestic partnership.

No timeline appears to have been set for the implementation for these regulations, although the much-derided, year-long, Pentagon-directed study has produced a rough facsimile of what they will look like. However, activists seem hopeful that the Pentagon will move quickly on the issue.

“While we now await certification and the transition regulations,” the Servicemembers’ Legal Defense Network head Alexander Nicholson said in a press statement issued this morning, “we call upon the senior defense leadership to hasten the implementation of this policy change internally. The U.S. military will certainly be better off as a result.”

“The Pentagon ought to be able to pull them off faster than it did the implementation of DADT in 1994, which took approximately 40 days,” the Palm Center said in a news release, quoting a report the Center released earlier this year.

Even With Repeal, LGBT Troops May Face Discrimination In The Ranks

Thursday, Senate Democrats announced that Majority Leader Harry Reid had scheduled a vote for Saturday on a bill that would repeal the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, but some LGBT servicemembers point out that they will still face problems from some fellow soldiers even if a repeal goes forward.

On Thursday night, Minnesota’s senior senator, Amy Klobuchar, appeared on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show, predicting success for the repeal measure.

“We’ll get that [repeal] done on a Saturday. That is the plan,” Klobuchar said. “We have picked up votes because of the pressure over the time that we have pushed and pushed for this to get done, this repeal.”

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Democrats are eager to showcase the repeal as a major accomplishment for the party, after most liberal party members attacked the recent tax-cut deal between President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders. Still, life in uniform after a repeal would still present obstacles, according to one gay Minnesotan enlisted member of the Army National Guard. The soldier asked not to be identified in case Saturday’s repeal vote failed.

“Even if DADT were to disappear tomorrow,” the part-time soldier said on Thursday, “I’d still have to deal with harassment from people in my unit who thought it was gross.”

The much-discussed Pentagon survey of soldiers, sailors, and airmen found that 69 percent of respondents believed they had already served alongside an LGBT person. Of those, 92 percent said their unit’s readiness did not suffer as a result.

In a previous interview, the soldier described how commanding officers would permit anti-LGBT jokes to be made by other members of the unit, and how one supervisor made insinuations about his sexual orientation without proof. The soldier said that he felt lucky to be in a unit that would not normally be on the front lines of battle. Friends and acquaintances in armored and infantry units, which are all-male, described a unit culture that was much more sexualized, the soldier said, and derogatory towards women, lesbians, gays, and bisexuals.

While the soldier did eventually come out to some members of their unit, the soldier says they are unable to be open about their sexuality in Minnesota out of fear that a superior or a friend of a superior might find out. Even though a successful repeal vote in the Senate appears increasingly likely as conservative Democrats and centrist Republicans signal their support, the guardmember says his emotions have swung from anger and frustration to apprehension as this and previous repeal efforts gain momentum or stall.

“It’s horrible having your life in the hands of a bunch of lawyers; a bunch of rich, white, old men in Washington [D.C.],” the guardmember said on Thursday.

Gladius Deathwatch?

While reports of its demise have been greatly exaggerated before, this may be the end for Gladius, the downtown Minneapolis gay bar that opened in September 2009 to much fanfare. While TheColu.mn has not yet been able to contact the owners, it has been informed by several people that they have heard “from the owner” that the bar will be closing on December 18th. The bar has been rumored to be facing financial difficulties.

The bar never seemed to reach the kind of prominence fellow upstart Minneapolis bars like Lush and Jetset achieved, but the rumors of a closing have put a crimp in at least one patron’s plans. In a message to invitees to a fundraiser for a friend battling lymphoma, Minneapolis-area resident Lauren DeLand said the announcement from Gladius staff was “abrupt.”

“We were surprised and upset by this sudden announcement,” DeLand wrote, “but we are determined to move forward with the benefit at another location.”

TheCou.mn is still trying to contact owner Phil Berglin, and will continue to update this article with more information as it becomes available.

A staff person at Gladius confirmed the Dec. 18 closing date under condition of anonymity.

Preserving History, Making History

Ever wanted to see a skateboard signed by famous transgender activist Leslie Feinberg? How about a rare book on human sexuality that was saved from a Nazi bonfire in the 1930′s? This weekend, you’ll have your chance, at an open house celebrating the 10th anniversary of a landmark donation of LGBT historical documents and artifacts to the University of Minnesota in the Andersen Library. The open house is accompanied by an exhibition of material from the archive running through February 5th. The archive, known as the Jean-Nikolaus Tretter Collection, after its long-time curator, has grown over the years to become one of the nation’s biggest collections of its kind in the world.

“I would say that collecting is [Tretter's] activism,” Arvid Nelsen told TheColu.mn in an interview on Wednesday. “With the collection, we’re preserving pieces that would otherwise get marignalized and destroyed…by members of the community who might ask ‘who cares about this flier.’ We may be saving the only evidence of a group’s actions or of a person’s existence.”

Nelsen, the head of the library’s Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts section, said that he hoped the open house and accompanying exhibition would help keep people from seeing the Collection as “a bunch of things gathering dust.”

“Many [LGBTQA] students come to campus looking for a sense of community and a sense of identity,” he said. “The collection can show us that we’re not alone in the arc of history.”

Asked if he feels offended by curiosity-seekers who wanted to come just to see artifacts like the autographed skateboard, Nelsen welcomed curiosity-seekers.

“We’re not just here to serve academics,” he said. “One of the things about special collections is that they’re a physical…connection to the past.”

“Frankly, I hope they come for those reasons,” Nelsen said.

The open house will run from 11 AM to 2 PM, and will feature:

Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra Chamber Group performing from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

KARE 11 News reporter Jana Shortal will present from 12:30-1 p.m.

Calliope Women’s Chorus will perform from 1-1:30 p.m.

Guided tours of Anderson Library archival caverns throughout open house

Collection of items for the Tretter Time Capsule (see z.umn.edu/tretterevents for contribution guidelines)

A video recording station for individuals to share memories, stories and insights

“Bloodbath” Will Likely Derail Hoped-For Equality Legislation

As if the results of Tuesday’s elections weren’t evidence enough, OutFront Minnesota announced Thursday afternoon that, while they “aren’t giving up,” they certainly won’t be holding their breath for the Minnesota legislature to pass any significant pro-equality legislation this session.

After completing her own post-mortem of the 72-62 majority in the state House of Representatives and the 37-30 split in the state Senate that Republicans will enjoy come the start of the new legislative session in January, OutFront’s Executive Director Monica Meyer tried to put a hopeful face on things in an interview with TheColu.mn. “What we hope is that [the new Republican members of the legislature] will think of the future of their party, and see that more and more younger people in Minnesota support equality,” she said.

However, both her analysis of the incoming Republican majorities and a separate analysis by TheColu.mn of pro- or anti-LGBT positions held by these legislators-to-be shows that most are very strong social conservatives, who will likely be unwilling to vote for LGBT rights.

“There are some people coming back that…were legislators before and we know their record,” Meyer told TheColu.mn, “but it’s discouraging to see how many on their [campaign] websites talked about anti-LGBT issues, about actively not standing up for equality.”

According to TheColu.mn’s tally, come January at least 30 of the 37 GOP state Senators and at least 58 of the 72 GOP state Representatives will fall firmly in the “anti-LGBT” box, making for near-majorities in each chamber of social conservatives who are more often found on the fringes of their party.

State Senator Scott Dibble (DFL – Minneapolis) told TheColu.mn that, while he fully intends to reintroduce an anti-bullying bill next year that passed the legislature in 2009 with bipartisan support, “chances are slim to none that it will get a hearing.”

“People in Minnesota need to know that some of us in power care,” he said.

If a specter stalks the upcoming legislative session, though, it is the prospect of an amendment to the state constitution that would ban same-gender marriage, reinforcing a similar state statute passed in 1997. While most “Tea Party” and GOP candidates, including Tom Emmer, ran away from social issues, Minnesotan religious conservatives kept harping on the issue over the summer and into the fall, raising fears that they will be pushing the issue come January.

“In a word: Change,” Star Tribune politics reporter Dennis McGrath said in an online forum with readers on Wednesday. “This election was bigger than any one or any group of issues facing the legislature. Voters were in an ornery mood and they went after Democratic incumbents. They were angry about the economy, angry at Obama.”

McGrath’s view is a hopeful note, and so far Republican leaders have stuck to a script promising to create jobs and cut the size of government, but Meyer said OutFront was getting ready to play a defensive game in St Paul nonetheless.

Plaintiffs In Marriage Rights Suit Fighting To Save Their Case

Their trial hasn’t even begun, and already lawyers for three same-gender couples suing the State of Minnesota for the right to marry are fighting to keep their case on track.

In May, the three couples – Duane Gajewski and Doug Benson, Lindzi Campbell and Jesse Dykhuis, John Rittman and Tom Trisko – filed suit alleging that the state law prohibiting state recognition of same-sex couples violates their civil rights. Unlike other high-profile court battles in Iowa and California, the couples are working without support from most of the state’s LGBT leaders, who largely support an attempt to repeal the offending law in the next session of the legislature. In a statement issued when the couples filed their suit, OutFront Minnesota said they worried that “[a]nother judicial opinion reinforcing the discriminatory ruling of Baker v. Nelson (a 1971 Minnesota Supreme Court decision holding that same-sex couples were not entitled to seek marriage licenses) would set back progress in achieving justice for our families.”

Yesterday, Judge Mary DuFresne heard arguments about the Minnesota Family Council’s ability to intervene in the lawsuit on the side of the state – essentially, whether or not they could become another defendant in the suit. According to Martha Ballou, a lawyer for the couples, a successful intervention by the Council could spell doom for their case.

This would drag the case out as lawyers for plaintiffs assembled and argued a piece-by-piece rebuttal of the MFC’s many claims that same-gender marriage will lead to the downfall of “traditional marriage,” as in the famous Perry v. Schwarzenneger case that struck down California’s Propposition 8

“It would distract the court from they key issue of how gay people are being harmed” by the marriage ban, Ballou explained, because their lawsuit is built on a challenge to the ban’s constitutionality, not a rebuttal of the MFC’s claims about the harm done to society by same-gender marriage.

Perhaps more importantly, the suit could drag out beyond the plaintiffs’ ability to pay for it. The couples have set up a non-profit to help gather donations to pay for legal fees, currently estimated at $30,000 to $60,000 according to the organization’s website. The website describes this as “a generous discount from the going rate.”

If the MFC is allowed to join the case, according to another lawyer for the couples, Jason Schellack, “there will be lots of evidentiary hearings to decide what experts the Family Council can and cannot bring in. It could cost the plaintifs a lot of money” beyond the current estimate.

A decision is not expected immediately, although the couples’ lawyers say they hope Judge DuFresne rules on the intervention question before a December hearing of a petition for dismissal filed by the state. Still Ballou and the other lawyers were upbeat about their chances for success.