Photo by Mktp.

Over at The Atlantic, there’s a nice piece about how the conversation-centric campaign against the proposed anti-gay-marriage amendment to Minnesota’s state constitution is playing out in communities outside the famously queer-friendly Twin Cities. It comes across as pretty hopeful, I’d say.

[Wendy] Ivins recalls a discussion she had one night with a neighbor who argued, “There are more important issues to deal with, like the economy.”

Ivins’ husband, Gary, stepped in. “I’m not an economist,” he said. “I can’t solve the economy. I’m not a military strategist, so I can’t do that. I’m a doctor — and this I do know: Every human being deserves the right to be treated the same as everybody else, and the ability to marry and spend your life with someone is a fundamental right. This is on our ballot right now; it’s important to us right now that we do something about this.”

“The person backed down a bit,” Ivins says. “It’s all about civil rights, injustice. But it’s simpler than that. It’s about individual families—what does it mean personally to you?”

That’s right out of the Minnesotans United for All Families playbook, that is. For more detail (and, yes, the inevitable references to Lake Wobegone), go read the whole thing.◼