One Mom’s Odyssey: How Minnesota Reversed Its Same-Sex Marriage Laws
- 11 years ago
A mother’s love for her son is a powerful thing. It helped change the course of history in Minnesota.
Randi Reitan was one of thousands of people who worked to legalize same-sex marriage in Minnesota, but she had a symbolic affect on the years-long fight. She began working for marriage equality more than a decade ago, after her son, Jake, came out as gay.
In 2010, UpTake video of her effort to launch a boycott of Target Corp., for donating to a fund that backed anti-gay-rights gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, went viral and may have helped doom the Republican’s candidacy. Had Emmer been elected governor, instead of Democrat Mark Dayton, the chances of legalizing same-sex marriage in Minnesota would have been slim. In 2012, had Reitan and others not fought a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, it might have been years before that law could be reversed.
Those struggles set the stage for this year’s dramatic passage of a same-sex marriage law in the Minnesota Legislature.
This video, shot by the staff of The UpTake over several years, documents how one mom’s simple action can help fuel a movement, and how love can turn despair into joy.Distributed by OneLoad.com
Randi Reitan was one of thousands of people who worked to legalize same-sex marriage in Minnesota, but she had a symbolic affect on the years-long fight. She began working for marriage equality more than a decade ago, after her son, Jake, came out as gay.
In 2010, UpTake video of her effort to launch a boycott of Target Corp., for donating to a fund that backed anti-gay-rights gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, went viral and may have helped doom the Republican’s candidacy. Had Emmer been elected governor, instead of Democrat Mark Dayton, the chances of legalizing same-sex marriage in Minnesota would have been slim. In 2012, had Reitan and others not fought a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, it might have been years before that law could be reversed.
Those struggles set the stage for this year’s dramatic passage of a same-sex marriage law in the Minnesota Legislature.
This video, shot by the staff of The UpTake over several years, documents how one mom’s simple action can help fuel a movement, and how love can turn despair into joy.Distributed by OneLoad.com