HRC Blog

Just outside the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota is Eden Prairie, a thriving community with the motto “Live, Work, Dream.” Recently, LGBT citizens and supporters gathered together for a No Excuses meeting to describe how they live, work and dream for equal rights. The six individuals, including known activists, health care workers, business owners, and PFLAG parents, met in Rep. Erik Paulsen’s office to talk about a variety of issues with one common theme: equality for all. Pictured to the left are Marnie and Elaine, partners of 18 years, who spoke on the importance of a federal sanction of same-sex marriage to support social security and pension transfer. They pointed out that they have been tax-paying citizens since their teen years, but without equal returns, because the financial benefits of filing jointly with their partners are lost each year. “The repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is necessary for these benefits to be received,” they said. Another meeting attendee David pointed out that DOMA violated longstanding constitutional provisions calling for states to recognize each others’ laws, saying that supporting DOMA was the opposite of conservative principles. Milo, a business owner, talked about his work to administer domestic partnership benefits to employees at his company.  He noted that out of the six meeting participants, five of the individuals worked in the health care industry. They all spoke about how supporting these issues would be good for business. Well-known supporter Randi Reitan attended the meeting to remind Rep. Paulsen that the LGBT community was active and watching Rep. Paulsen as he casts his votes. She pointed out that Rep. Paulsen “could be a leader in the civil rights movements of our day.” She even invited Rep. Paulsen and his staff to attend National Coming Out Day and the National Equality March in Washington, D.C. Arnie, a proud parent of a lesbian daughter, followed up with an invitation to attend the Rainbow Families gathering to see families embracing their gay children and siblings and parents. Both Randi and Arnie asked that Rep. Paulsen think about the legacy he was leaving his children. Arnie also reminded the staff member that the Supreme Court has engraved over its entrance the words “Equal Justice Under Law” and said that he wanted Rep. Paulsen to embrace that principle. “Those words were part of Rep. Paulsen’s oath of office, and I don’t like to see that he is not fulfilling that,” Arnie said, referring to Rep. Paulsen’s “no” vote on the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act. Several other meeting attendees expressed their dismay of the vote. They asked Rep. Paulsen to respond with a letter explaining why he didn’t vote for the hate crimes act. Recognizing the Congressman’s conservative background, meeting attendee Milo said he “tried to see if we could bridge the gap between Rep. Paulsen’s stance and ours,” by asking if there was some area in which Rep. Paulsen could embrace an issue important to the LGBT community –like repealing the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Another attendee, David asked him to overturn Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, noting that when the army integrated, it was the first major institution in the country to do so, and it began to change society quickly. He also noted to the staff member a trend of evangelical Christians showing more support for equal rights for gays and lesbians. Arnie summed up his feelings on the meeting and the movement:

“During my life, I’ve had the opportunity to look back and ask myself ‘is there something I would feel better about today if I had done something differently?’  I know I would have gotten on the equality of human rights bandwagon sooner and been an activist, not just an observer. It is why I’ve volunteered to serve on the Edina Human Rights and Relations Commission for the next 3 years.  What I’ve discovered is that the Edina population (one of the “grayest” in the state), is very compassionate and is not interested in keeping their LGBT family and community members hidden or out of sight and stripped of the basic rights others have. Life is too short. “