Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes, becomes the 12th state to interpret the phrase, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", to include the right to chose who you love and marry, same-sex inclusive.  Governor Mark Dayton signed the bill into law on the first business day following a 37-30 vote by the state senate in St. Paul late last week.

When it looked like this bill would pass, many citizens from the state and region congregated near the capitol in celebratory anticipation of the law's passage.  Gay marriage activists and constitutional law scholars alike hail what appears to be significant momentum toward the legal recognition of gay marriage as an individual's civil right.

Other supporters lament, however, that it will likely take decades for all the fifty states -or at least most of them- to pass laws similar to the one in St. Paul last week.

This is why all eyes are on Washington, D.C. and our SCOTUS, where release of the much-anticipated opinion in Hollingsworth v Perry is imminent as the High Court's term comes to a close next month.  At least one federal judge here in Detroit, MI has been holding a same-sex marriage case in abeyance until the SCOTUS decides Hollingsworth.

Minnesota, like Michigan, had a state-law ban on gay marriage.  The lake tides have changed, however, in the course of the past year and within the last election-cycle; the state-law ban in Minnesota was overturned and the gay marriage law passed.  We here at the Law Blogger have to wonder if this could have ever happened when Jesse Ventura was the governor...

Michigan, along with California, Hawaii, Colorado, Nevada, and a half-dozen other states, are seen as battleground states on this issue.  We cannot help but notice the high correlation between the passage of this series of states' civil rights laws, and the presence of a Democratic governor.

We will know more about the progression of this civil rights struggle next month after SCOTUS rules.

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