Twitter.com

@GovMarkDayton posted this photo on Twitter.com, with the caption “It’s history”

As thousands cheered outside the state Capitol with rainbow and American flags, Governor Mark Dayton signed a bill on Tuesday that makes it possible for same-sex couples to get married.

Minnesota is the 12^th state to pass a gay marriage bill and the first Midwestern state to do so through a legislative vote.

“What a day for Minnesota!” Dayton, a Democrat, declared moments before putting his signature on a bill. “And what a difference a year and an election can make in our state.”

The bill was signed a day after it was approved by the Senate in a 37-30 vote.

“It is an overwhelming joyful day, the culmination of years of work. Two years ago it would have been unimaginable to be here,” said Jake Loesch, communications director with Minnesotans United, a LGBT group. “It was incredible, we had 7,000 people cheering as the bill as signed, it was probably the biggest crowd the Capitol has ever seen,”

Gay activists from all over the country cheered this decision.

“The transformative nature of people talking about their love and their lives is clear, as we see in reaching this milestone in Minnesota, and in the fact that a clear and growing majority of Americans supports the freedom to marry,” said Rea Carey, executive director of National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

“The many years of door-knocking, phone calls and poignant conversations about why marriage matters have made a difference.”

And Minnesotans United tweeted: “Freedom prevails. Thank you, Minnesota!”

The push for gay marriage was a quick change from just six months ago, when LGBT supporters had to mobilize to turn back a proposed constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex unions. Minnesota already had such a law, but an amendment would have been more difficult to ever undo.

But voters rejected the amendment, and the forces that organized to defeat it soon turned their attention to legalizing gay marriage. Democrats’ takeover of the Legislature in the November election aided their cause.

“There is still a lot of work to be done. Now we have to make sure that all the legislators that made this day possible will be reelected,” said Loesch.

Tonight, the city of Saint Paul is hosting a party to celebrate this historical moment. The law will go into effect on August 1.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Twitter.com

@GovMarkDayton posted this photo on Twitter.com, with the caption “It’s history”

As thousands cheered outside the state Capitol with rainbow and American flags, Governor Mark Dayton signed a bill on Tuesday that makes it possible for same-sex couples to get married.

Minnesota is the 12^th state to pass a gay marriage bill and the first Midwestern state to do so through a legislative vote.

“What a day for Minnesota!” Dayton, a Democrat, declared moments before putting his signature on a bill. “And what a difference a year and an election can make in our state.”

The bill was signed a day after it was approved by the Senate in a 37-30 vote.

“It is an overwhelming joyful day, the culmination of years of work. Two years ago it would have been unimaginable to be here,” said Jake Loesch, communications director with Minnesotans United, a LGBT group. “It was incredible, we had 7,000 people cheering as the bill as signed, it was probably the biggest crowd the Capitol has ever seen,”

Gay activists from all over the country cheered this decision.

“The transformative nature of people talking about their love and their lives is clear, as we see in reaching this milestone in Minnesota, and in the fact that a clear and growing majority of Americans supports the freedom to marry,” said Rea Carey, executive director of National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

“The many years of door-knocking, phone calls and poignant conversations about why marriage matters have made a difference.”

And Minnesotans United tweeted: “Freedom prevails. Thank you, Minnesota!”

The push for gay marriage was a quick change from just six months ago, when LGBT supporters had to mobilize to turn back a proposed constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex unions. Minnesota already had such a law, but an amendment would have been more difficult to ever undo.

But voters rejected the amendment, and the forces that organized to defeat it soon turned their attention to legalizing gay marriage. Democrats’ takeover of the Legislature in the November election aided their cause.

“There is still a lot of work to be done. Now we have to make sure that all the legislators that made this day possible will be reelected,” said Loesch.

Tonight, the city of Saint Paul is hosting a party to celebrate this historical moment. The law will go into effect on August 1.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Twitter.com

@GovMarkDayton posted this photo on Twitter.com, with the caption “It’s history”

As thousands cheered outside the state Capitol with rainbow and American flags, Governor Mark Dayton signed a bill on Tuesday that makes it possible for same-sex couples to get married.

Minnesota is the 12^th state to pass a gay marriage bill and the first Midwestern state to do so through a legislative vote.

“What a day for Minnesota!” Dayton, a Democrat, declared moments before putting his signature on a bill. “And what a difference a year and an election can make in our state.”

The bill was signed a day after it was approved by the Senate in a 37-30 vote.

“It is an overwhelming joyful day, the culmination of years of work. Two years ago it would have been unimaginable to be here,” said Jake Loesch, communications director with Minnesotans United, a LGBT group. “It was incredible, we had 7,000 people cheering as the bill as signed, it was probably the biggest crowd the Capitol has ever seen,”

Gay activists from all over the country cheered this decision.

“The transformative nature of people talking about their love and their lives is clear, as we see in reaching this milestone in Minnesota, and in the fact that a clear and growing majority of Americans supports the freedom to marry,” said Rea Carey, executive director of National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

“The many years of door-knocking, phone calls and poignant conversations about why marriage matters have made a difference.”

And Minnesotans United tweeted: “Freedom prevails. Thank you, Minnesota!”

The push for gay marriage was a quick change from just six months ago, when LGBT supporters had to mobilize to turn back a proposed constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex unions. Minnesota already had such a law, but an amendment would have been more difficult to ever undo.

But voters rejected the amendment, and the forces that organized to defeat it soon turned their attention to legalizing gay marriage. Democrats’ takeover of the Legislature in the November election aided their cause.

“There is still a lot of work to be done. Now we have to make sure that all the legislators that made this day possible will be reelected,” said Loesch.

Tonight, the city of Saint Paul is hosting a party to celebrate this historical moment. The law will go into effect on August 1.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

When Gov. Mark Dayton adds his signature to the bill legalizing gay marriage in Minnesota later Tuesday, its two main sponsors will stand triumphantly beside him admiring the fruits of their long and often demoralizing struggle for gay rights.

Democrats Rep. Karen Clark and Sen. Scott Dibble are gay, and Tuesday’s signing ceremony on the state Capitol’s front steps will allow Clark to marry her partner of 24 years in the only state where she’s ever lived.

“I thought it would happen someday, but I didn’t know I would be able to be here to be part of it,” Clark said Tuesday, hours before Dayton planned to make Minnesota the 12th state to legalize gay marriage and the first in the Midwest to do so by a legislative vote.

Come Aug. 1, courthouses throughout Minnesota will be able to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. It’s a remarkable about-face for the state, where only six months ago voters were asked whether they wanted to enshrine a gay marriage ban in the state constitution (they didn’t). At the heart of the effort were Dibble and Clark — the longest-serving, openly gay lawmaker in the country — who have spent years fighting for equal treatment for gays.

Clark, 67, had already been out of the closet for a decade when she was elected to the Legislature in 1980. While on the House floor last week defending her quest to legalize gay marriage, she won plaudits even from Republicans opposed to the bill.

“I don’t know of a kinder, more gentle woman on this floor that has a bigger heart for the environment, the underprivileged, the downtrodden, the American Indian, especially the women. I admire you,” said Tony Cornish, a longtime Republican representative from rural southern Minnesota.

Clark grew up on a farm in Rock County, in the state’s southwestern corner. She came out to her parents, now both dead, in her mid-20s.

“The very first thing my mother said was, ‘I will always love you,’” Clark recalled. In 1993, her by-then elderly parents marched with her in the Minneapolis gay pride parade a few weeks after she led the effort to extend Minnesota’s civil rights protections to gay people.

But by 1997, the same Legislature passed the “Defense of Marriage Act,” which restricted marriage to only opposite-sex couples. A year later, Clark introduced a bill to repeal it and allow gay marriage.

It took 16 years to get to this week, which comes two years after the 2011 Legislature — then controlled by Republicans — put an amendment on the statewide ballot asking voters to cement the existing gay marriage ban in the state constitution.

“It was hard because it was very personal,” Dibble said of the 2011 vote. “People whom I had counted as very, very good friends voted for it.”

Dibble, 47, graduated from high school in the Minneapolis suburb of Apple Valley and came out in college. He cut his teeth politically in the late 1980s as a member of the Minnesota chapter of ACT UP — a gay civil rights group that engaged in civil disobedience out of anger toward government neglect of AIDS and HIV sufferers. He got an early chance to join the establishment from Clark, who tapped him to run one of her re-election campaigns.

“I pulled him from street politics,” she said. Dibble was elected to the House in 2000, and in 2002 to the state Senate. He holds the southwest Minneapolis seat once occupied by the late Allan Spear, who in 1974 became one of the very first U.S. elected officials to come out of the closet.

Ben Garvin / The St. Paul Pioneer Press via AP

Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, left, sponsor of the gay marriage bill in the Minnesota Senate, and his partner Richard Leyva greet a large, joyous crowd as they arrive at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, Minn. on May 13, before a Minnesota Senate debate on a bill that would make Minnesota the 12th state to legalize gay marriage and the first to pass such a measure out of its Legislature.

The Minnesota Senate gave final approval on Monday to a bill that will make the state the 12th in the United States to allow same-sex couples to marry and only the second in the Midwest.

The majority Democrat state Senate voted 37-30 to approve the bill legalizing gay marriage, putting Minnesota on the verge of becoming the third state in the nation to approve same-sex nuptials in May after Rhode Island and Delaware.

The state House approved the measure last week.

Democratic Governor Mark Dayton has said he will sign the bill on Tuesday. The law would take effect August 1.

Minnesota will join Iowa as the only other Midwestern state to permit gay marriage and the first to do so through legislation. Iowa has permitted same-sex marriage since 2009 under a state Supreme Court order.

The Minnesota House had been expected to be the bigger hurdle, but representatives voted 75-59 on Thursday to approve a bill with some Republican support.

The measure has at least one Republican sponsor in the Senate.

Senator Scott Dibble, the bill’s architect, has said the stronger-than-expected vote from representatives was very encouraging and urged same-sex marriage supporters to continue active lobbying for the bill right up to Monday’s vote.

Hundreds of supporters and opponents of the proposal to legalize same-sex marriage demonstrated at the Capitol on Thursday. Monday’s atmosphere was very similar.

The vote on Thursday was a sharp reversal for Minnesota’s legislature. Two years ago, Republicans controlled both chambers and bypassed the governor to put forward a ballot measure that would have made the state’s current ban on gay marriage part of the state constitution.

Minnesota voters in November rejected that measure and also voted in Democratic majorities in both the state House and Senate, setting the legislature on the path toward Monday’s vote.

Republican Senator Warren Limmer, a sponsor of the proposed amendment two years ago, has said the legislation will change how businesses work, clergy speak from the pulpit and school curriculums are shaped.

“Prior to the marriage amendment (vote) in November, many people were warning that this day would come,” Limmer said in an interview last week.

Opponents of the bill have questioned whether the rights of religious groups and individuals who believe marriage should be only between one man and one woman would be protected. They also questioned the speed with which the measure was being approved.

Over several years, voters in more than two dozen states approved state constitutional provisions that define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. But in the past year, gay rights advocates won a series of victories.

In November, Maine, Maryland and Washington state became the first states to approve same-sex marriage at the ballot box.

Same-sex marriage is also legal in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. The District of Columbia also has legalized same-sex marriage.

Illinois state senators approved a bill in February, but the measure has not been voted on in the full House. 

This story was originally published on Mon May 13, 2013 6:51 PM EDT

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

HAVANA (AP) — About 500 people have marched through the Cuban capital to the rhythm of conga drums in an early celebration of the international day against homophobia.

President Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela led Saturday’s procession of gays and their supporters, some of whom chanted “Homophobia no! Socialism yes!”

She’s head of the National Sexual Education Center and a leading campaigner for gay rights in Cuba, where the government persecuted homosexuals, especially in the 1960s. She says she’s optimistic that the communist nation will eventually legalize gay marriage, but says “What is most complicated is the time it takes to overcome prejudices.”

Promoters plan a series of expositions and conferences leading up to another celebration in the city of Ciego de Avila on the day against homophobia itself, which falls on May 17.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The U.S. is a top market for gay-friendly surrogacy.

Portland, Ore., famous for its coffeehouses, indie music, microbreweries and bookstores, is now gaining recognition — particularly among gay couples — for a lesser-known attraction: reproductive medicine.

Gays and lesbians who want babies are flocking from as far away as France and Israel to conceive their dream of becoming parents using donor eggs, donor sperm and surrogates — something not allowed in their home countries.

The USA is a top market for gay-friendly surrogacy, and a growing number of couples come from overseas, creating a burgeoning travel segment commonly called medical tourism.

“They all, without exception, cannot do surrogacy or egg donation in their countries,” says Ron Poole-Dayan, executive director of Men Having Babies, a non-profit support network for biological gay fathers and fathers-to-be. At least 40% of the 1,000 couples in the group are European.

The popularity of the USA with gays and lesbians worldwide who aspire to be parents is understandable. But Portland?

There are several reasons why the City of Roses, which combines small-town charm (fewer than 600,000 people) with a big-city vision that’s become an international model for good planning (light-rail, an urban-growth boundary), is becoming a magnet for gay couples on a parental mission:

• Top clinic. Oregon Reproductive Medicine (ORM), based in Portland, is ranked one of the top in the world for its high success rate, egg and sperm donor options and quality of medical service.

“They are really very highly rated,” says Poole-Dayan, whose group rates agencies and clinics. He and his husband are dads of 12-year-old twins through surrogacy.

About 85% of surrogacy attempts at ORM result in a child’s birth and “that’s the biggest reason people all over the world come to Portland,” says Jonathan Kipp, marketing director.

Ten years ago, the clinic might have seen one gay couple in a year but “now, it’s absolutely a normal day to have gay couples in our hallways every week,” he says.

• Gay-friendly. Portland is”very left-leaning, it’s welcoming, it’s small and it’s down to earth,” Kipp says. “Really, it’s a lot of things that people, no matter where you are in the world, like.”

The domestic and international LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) travelers “looking for a friendly, safe and fun place to travel are important pieces of the tourism story,” says Megan Conway, of Travel Portland, the city’s visitors association.

The community supports gay-owned businesses, she says, and “that, in turn, is why this is also such a great destination for LGBT travelers.”

• Healthy and young. The city, nestled between the Willamette and Columbia rivers, attracts outdoorsy, health-conscious people, says Carl Abbott, professor of urban studies and planning at Portland State University.

“There are lots of hikers and bicycle commuters and healthy people in their 20s and 30s … and people in that age range with a college education are more socially liberal and progressive,” he says.

Liberalism aside, “We have lots of young, healthy women willing to donate their eggs and lots of young mothers who want to be gestational carriers who are healthy people,” Kipp says.

• Cheaper. The process of making babies usually costs $130,000 to $170,000 in more typical destinations — larger cities such as New York and Los Angeles.

“The California and northeast agencies have become very expensive,” Poole-Dayan says. “The cost in Portland is somewhere around $90,000, and its reported success is very high.”

Guy Tatsa, 43, and Lucian Laur, 38, live in Tel Aviv, Israel. They had their first child, Ella, now 5, through a surrogate in Los Angeles. But they came to Portland for their next child and wound up with two: twins Eitan and David, just under 4 months old now.

“We had friends who had done it through ORM, and we searched clinic’s statistics and saw they were one of the best,” Tatsa says. “We found Portland a wonderful place … a very-child-oriented city.”

They came three times for tests, to meet the surrogate and see the ultrasound and finally for the births.

“You have to want to get here if you’re coming from Tel Aviv or Paris,” Abbott says. “It’s a long trip.”

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Supporters already are celebrating the Minnesota House’s passage of a measure to legalize gay marriage, but there are a few more steps before it gets to Gov. Mark Dayton’s desk.

“It’s not time to uncork the champagne yet. But it’s chilling,” Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-Hopkins, said at a spirited rally in the Capitol rotunda a few minutes after the House voted 75-59 to let same-sex couples start getting married in Minnesota come Aug. 1.

The state Senate is scheduled to vote on the bill Monday, and leaders expect it to pass there too. Dayton has pledged to sign it into law, and a spokesman said the Democratic governor likely would do so at a Tuesday ceremony.

Final passage would make Minnesota the 12th state in the country to allow gay couples to wed, and the first in the Midwest to pass such a law in its Legislature. It comes just six months after the state’s voters rejected banning gay marriage in the state constitution.

The bill passed in the House after more than three hours of debate that was emotional at times but remained respectful throughout. Many hundreds of demonstrators on both sides of the issue chanted, sang and waved signs outside the House chamber, prompting heightened security at the Capitol. But no disruptions were reported.

Rep. Karen Clark, the bill’s sponsor, said her only goal was equal treatment under state law for same-sex couples. In a deeply personal speech, the Minneapolis Democrat talked of the support she got from her own family after coming out as gay decades ago.

“My family knew firsthand that same-sex couples pay our taxes, we vote, we serve in the military, we take care of our kids and our elders and we run businesses in Minnesota,” Clark said.

Four of the House’s 61 Republicans voted for the bill, while two of its 73 Democrats voted no. None of the four Republicans committed support beforehand. One, Rep. Jenifer Loon of Eden Prairie, said she made up her mind during the debate, in which lawmakers listened with rapt attention while their colleagues spoke.

“There comes a time when you just have to set politics aside and decide in your gut what is the right thing to do,” said Loon, whose suburban district southwest of Minneapolis voted strongly against last fall’s gay marriage ban. The other Republicans to vote for gay marriage also hail from suburban or exurban districts: Pat Garofalo of Farmington, David FitzSimmons of Albertville and Andrea Kieffer of Woodbury.

Opponents argued the legislation alters a centuries-old conception of marriage, and leaves those people opposed for religious reasons to be tarred as bigots.

“We’re not. We’re not,” said Rep. Kelby Woodard, a Republican from Belle Plaine. “These are people with deeply held beliefs, including myself.”

House Republican Leader Kurt Daudt acknowledged views on gay marriage are changing but said the bill’s sponsors stood to alienate thousands of Minnesotans who still believe in the male-female definition of marriage.

“Hearts and minds are changing on this,” Daudt said. “But Minnesotans are still divided.”

The two Democrats who voted no, Patti Fritz of Faribault and Mary Sawatzky of Willmar, represent largely rural districts where the gay marriage ban was backed by a majority of voters. But most of the Democrats from rural, more socially conservative areas ended up voting for the bill.

Outside the chamber, supporters and opponents of the bill stood shoulder to shoulder and chanted with equal vigor. Gay marriage backers dressed in orange T-Shirts and held signs that read, “I Support The Freedom to Marry.” Behind them, opponents held up bright pink signs that simply read, “Vote No.”

Among the demonstrators was Grace McBride, 27, a nurse from St. Paul. She said she and her partner felt compelled to be there to watch history unfold. She said she hopes to get married “as soon as I can” if the bill becomes law. The legislation would allow her to do so starting Aug. 1.

“I have thought about my wedding since I was a little girl,” she said.

On the other side of the divide, Galina Komar, a recent Ukrainian immigrant who lives in Bloomington, brought her 4-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son to the Capitol to express her religious concerns.

“I do believe in God, and I believe God already created the perfect way to have a family,” Komar said.

Eleven other states allow gay marriages — including Rhode Island and Delaware, which approved laws in the past week.

Iowa allows gay marriages because of a 2009 court ruling. Leaders in Illinois — the only Midwestern state other than Minnesota with a Democratic-led statehouse — say that state is close to having the votes to approve a law too.

More than two dozen House Democrats gave speeches for the bill, many sharing personal stories of gay friends and family members.

“There are kids being raised by grandparents, single parents, two moms or two dads,” said Rep. Laurie Halverson, a Democrat from a suburb south of St. Paul. “Some of those folks are my friends. And we talk about the same things as parents. We talk about large piles of laundry, and how much it hurts to step on a Lego. That’s what we do, because we’re all families.”

ST. PAUL — A historic vote Thursday in the Minnesota House positioned the state to become the 12th in the country to allow gay marriages and the first in the Midwest to pass such a law.

Lawmakers approved it 75 to 59, a critical step for the measure that would allow same-sex weddings beginning this summer. Six months ago, voters turned back an effort to ban gay marriage in the Minnesota Constitution.

The state Senate plans to consider the bill Monday and leaders expect it to pass there, too. Governor Mark Dayton has pledged to sign it into law.

‘‘It’s not time to uncork the champagne yet. But it’s chilling,’’ Representative Steve Simon, a suburban Democrat who backed the bill, said at a rally in the state Capitol rotunda minutes after the vote.

Representative Karen Clark, sponsor of the bill, said her only goal was equal treatment under state law for same-sex couples. In a deeply personal speech, the Minneapolis Democrat talked of the support she got from her own family after coming out as gay decades ago.

‘‘My family knew firsthand that same-sex couples pay our taxes, we vote, we serve in the military, we take care of our kids and our elders, and we run businesses in Minnesota,’’ she said.

Four of the House’s 61 Republicans voted for the bill, while two of its 73 Democrats voted no. None of the four Republicans committed support beforehand; one, Representative Jenifer Loon, said she made up her mind during the three-hour House debate.

‘‘There comes a time when you just have to set politics aside and decide in your gut what is the right thing to do,’’ said Loon, whose suburban district southwest of Minneapolis voted strongly against last fall’s gay marriage ban. The other Republicans to vote for gay marriage also hail from suburban or exurban districts: Pat Garofalo of Farmington, David FitzSimmons of Albertville, and Andrea Kieffer of Woodbury.

The two Democrats who voted no, Patti Fritz of Faribault and Mary Sawatzky of Willmar, represent largely rural districts where the gay marriage ban was backed by a majority of voters. But most of the Democrats from rural, more socially conservative areas ended up voting for the bill.

Opponents argued that it would alter a centuries-old conception of marriage and leave those people opposed for religious reasons tarred as bigots.

‘‘We’re not. We’re not,’’ said Representative Kelby Woodard, a Republican from Belle Plaine. ‘‘These are people with deeply held beliefs, including myself.’’

House Republican leader Kurt Daudt acknowledged that views on gay marriage are changing, but said the bill’s sponsors stood to alienate thousands of Minnesotans who still believe in the male-female definition of marriage.