Photo: Opponents of Proposition 8 in California protest. Source: Dannyman, Flickr

The Minnesota for Marriage coalition, a group that is is urging voters to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, has told the media and the Minnesota campaign finance board that if they have to disclose their donors, they will be subject to violence by supporters of marriage equality.

But a string of court cases across the country have shed serious doubt on those claims, with courts finding that conservative leaders were unable to provide credible evidence of threats or violence.

Avoiding disclosure in Minnesota

The Minnesota Family Council and the National Organization for Marriage lobbied the campaign finance board to loosen disclosure on campaign spending by arguing that their donors will be targeted if their names are disclosed.

“To require groups, non profits like the Minnesota Family Council, to disclose their donors and make their donors names public would have a significant chilling effect on free speech. Even in Minnesota already it’s gotten heated in some respects,” Tom Prichard, president of MFC, told the board in June. “The concern is harassment, property damage, a chilling effect. If I know I have to disclose my name, I’m not going to get involved with the Minnesota Family Council.”

Prichard said he had knowledge of violence against donors to the Prop 8 campaign in California.

“They went after their employment, by challenging their employers. There was vandalism on certain organizations. I can think of one individual that his business suffered because he had to disclose,” he said. “I don’t think our organization should have to disclose our donors, period. We just don’t believe we should be forced to.”

Conservative Catholic columnist for the Star Tribune, Katherine Kersten, recently echoed the Minnesota Family Council’s claims.

“A block thrown through a home window. Cars vandalized. Hate-filled anonymous phone calls at home and work. Swastikas scrawled on houses of worship. Physical assaults. Dismissal from employment because of political views,” wrote Kersten. “[T]his is the sort of intimidation that Americans who support marriage as the union of a man and woman can face today. Persecution of opponents is becoming a tool of the trade for some gay-marriage activists, who—ironically—seem to view themselves as beacons of tolerance.”

She added, “Now, the groundwork for such intimidation is being laid in Minnesota.”

The groundwork is actually being laid for a lawsuit by NOM and the Minnesota for Marriage coalition against the state of Minnesota. When the campaign finance board rejected Minnesota for Marriage’s arguments that full disclosure of donors would put them at risk, the coalition announced that it would not follow the board’s disclosure rules.

But history shows that launching a lawsuit in Minnesota based on the possibility of violence against marriage amendment supporters would be an uphill battle.

Protect Marriage Washington falsified or exaggerated about threats

NOM’s claims were tested this fall in Washington state when Protect Marriage Washington (PMW), a group affiliated with NOM, lost its case in court. PMW wanted to overturn that state’s domestic partner laws through an initiative called R-71. The group was successful in gathering enough signatures to put the repeal on the ballot, but it did not want those signatures to be public arguing that “militant homosexual activist groups” would target them.

After a local paper did a feature with state legislator Elizabeth Scott, a feature that included her contact information and talked about her support for repealing the domestic partner law, she said she received death threats.

“Extremists issued multiple death threats to me and my children due to my being publicly questioned about my personal beliefs,” Scott told the Faith and Freedom Network. “I am greatly concerned for both the safety and the freedom of speech of those who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman.”

The court found that Scott’s story did not stand up to scrutiny.

“However, other than speculation, Scott does not attribute to R-71 this death threat or any other incident that she claimed could be considered harassment,” the court wrote.

After the court decision, she wrote, “I guess when the First Amendment is eliminated, we drop back to the Second.”

Gary Randall, who runs the Faith and Freedom Network that spearheaded the effort to repeal the domestic partner law, also had his own complaints about death threats, which he later retracted.

“Randall testified that he received death threats via a blog site; however, when asked to demonstrate where in the copy of the blog posting he believed a threat of his or another’s life was made he could not do so without relying on assumptions,” the court wrote, adding that Randall “finally conceding that no actual death threat was made on the website”

The court noted that Randall was referring to the website, PinkPistols.org, which is a group for LGBT people who hold conceal and carry licenses.

“This website appears to advocate for homosexuals to be armed if desired to use only in self defense,” the court said in a footnote. “[Randall] has not supplied competent evidence to the contrary.”

As a matter of fact, the website no longer exists and according to the Wayback Machine hasn’t been updated since 2006, well before Washington’s enacting of the domestic partnership law.

Other witnesses provided testimony in the Washington case that the court found lacking. One witness testified that he was harassed when two women came up to him while he was gathering signatures for R-71 and one said “we have feelings too.” Another said he found three Post-It notes on his car with vulgar language. Still another felt harassed when a passing motorist made offensive gestures at him.

In the court’s conclusion, Judge Benjamin Settle wrote:

Applied here, the Court finds that Doe has only supplied evidence that hurts rather than helps its case. Doe has supplied minimal testimony from a few witnesses who, in their respective deposition testimony, stated either that police efforts to mitigate reported incidents was sufficient or unnecessary. Doe has supplied no evidence that police were or are now unable or unwilling to mitigate any claimed harassment or are now unable or unwilling to control the same, should disclosure be made.

The court did say that they’d demonstrated that there was some hostility to a same-sex marriage ban in the state, but not that it could lead to threats or violence, and that there had been no evidence that advocates had been harassed in the two years since the ballot question was introduced to Washington state voters.

California and Prop 8

In October, NOM and ProtectMarriage.com lost their bid to keep donors to the Proposition 8 campaign anonymous. The groups worked to pass Proposition 8, which repealed the state’s legalization of same-sex marriage in 2008. NOM had argued that disclosing its donors would chill free speech and that widespread violence against Prop 8 supporters would put its donors at risk.

But the judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Morrison England, a Bush appointee, found the evidence a bit thin.

[T]he vast majority of the incidents cited by Plaintiffs are arguably, as characterized by defendants, typical of any controversial campaign. For example, picketing, protesting, boycotting, distributing flyers, destroying yard signs and voicing dissent do not necessarily rise to the level of “harassment” or “reprisals,” especially in comparison to acts directed at groups in the past.

Moreover, a good portion of these actions are themselves forms of speech protected by the United States Constitution.

The court also rejected the idea that any activity directed at entities that backed Prop 8, such as the Mormon church, necessarily meant it was due to Prop 8.

“Plaintiffs have produced insufficient evidence that the more incendiary events on which they rely were connected to Proposition 8 or to gay marriage at all,” the judge wrote. “Rather, a number of these incidents were directed at the Mormon church, which, though a backer of California’s proposition, may also have been a target for any of a number of other reasons.”

And while NOM and other anti-gay marriage amendment backers said that the violence against them was widespread, the judge disagreed.

Accordingly, while Plaintiffs can point to a relatively few unsavory acts committed by extremists or criminals, these acts are so small in number, and in some instances their connection to plaintiffs’ supporters so attenuated, that they do not show a reasonable probability plaintiffs’ contributors will suffer the same fate. Given the grand scale of plaintiffs’ campaign and the massive (and national) support they garnered for their cause, plaintiffs’ limited evidence is simply insufficient to support a finding that disclosure of contributors’ names will lead to threats, harassment or reprisals.

The future in Minnesota
Government transparency advocates have been watching NOM’s actions in Minnesota very carefully. In addition to California, Washington, and Minnesota, NOM has also unsuccessfully challenged disclosure laws in Iowa, Maine, New York and Rhode Island.

“Proponents and opponents of same-sex marriage certainly are engaged in a heated debate,” wrote Common Cause Minnesota’s Mike Dean and Mark Ladov of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York Universtiy School of Law in a column for the Duluth News Tribune. “But it is insulting to claim transparency would leave major campaign donors vulnerable to the violent intimidation tactics civil-rights activists faced in the era of Bull Connor.”

Dean and Ladov pointed back to the outcry when Target Corporation gave money to a group supporting an anti-gay marriage candidate.

“[R]emember how these same groups howled about so-called ‘harassment’ when gay-rights advocates called for a boycott of Target over contributions supporting Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. But that isn’t harassment. It’s a boycott — one of the time-honored ways in which ordinary people, without access to wealthy corporate treasuries, can organize for change and make sure their voices are heard in the political process.”

The influential lobby for the environment said Friday that it was jumping into the same-sex marriage debate because of its commitment to social justice.

“To achieve our mission of environmental protection and a sustainable future for our planet, we must attain social justice and human rights at home and around the globe,” said Margaret Levin, the state director of the Sierra Club North Star Chapter. “The Sierra Club North Star Chapter has a long history of working together to protect our communities and our planet. We do not tolerate injustice, and we will not stand by and allow our state constitution to be used as a means of dividing communities and harming families.”

It’s one of the first times a chapter of the powerful environmentalist group has backed an LGBT rights issue. The group declined to get involved in California’s Prop 8 battle in 2008 and Maine’s Question One in 2009.

Two polls show that the amendment might get defeated while two others show a slight lead for anti-gay marriage activists.

On Thursday, the St. Cloud State University Survey was released showing that 47 percent of Minnesotans thought the constitution should not be amended and 44 percent said it should. The difference is within the poll’s 5 percent margin of error, making the result a statistical tie.

The St. Cloud Times notes that the margin changes drastically depending on what type of phone the user answered: 48 percent of landline phone users supported the amendment compared to 39 percent of cell phone users.

A KSTP/SurveyUSA poll released on Wednesday found that 46 percent of registered voters support the amendment while 40 percent said they would vote against it. Interestingly, the poll also asked whether someone would not vote on the issue, which is considered a “no” vote in Minnesota. Ten percent said they did not plan to vote at all on the question bringing the total of opposition and under-vote to 50 percent, within the poll’s 4.3 percent margin of error making the question a statistical tie.

The landline versus mobile split was also present in the SurveyUSA poll. Only 34 percent of mobile users planned to vote for the amendment while 50 percent of landline users planned to vote for it.

The Star Tribune released its Minnesota poll on Tuesday showing that 48 percent of Minnesotans support the amendment, 43 percent opposed it and 8 percent are undecided. The results were within the poll’s margin of error, meaning that this poll as well was a statistical tie.

The result matches closely with what SurveyUSA found but completely opposite of the St. Cloud State University poll.

The one poll that was an outlier in this week was a poll by QEV Analytics commissioned by Minnesota for Marriage, the group advocating for the gay marriage ban. In that poll, 51 percent of voters said they would vote for the amendment and 40 percent would vote against it.

Minnesota for Marriage released the poll in response to the Star Tribune poll, which the group calls biased.

“The Star Tribune survey showing us with a five point lead substantially understates our true position. This is not surprising given the newspaper’s historic bias against conservative issues and candidates,” Minnesota for Marriage chair John Helmberger said in a statement. “We are releasing our own survey, which utilized the actual wording of the amendment question being presented to voters, to show that we enter the campaign in a very strong position.”

The QEV poll excluded media and political employees and their families from the poll. It asked, “Are you, or anyone in your household, employed with an advertising agency, newspaper, television or radio station, or political campaign?” Anyone who answered in the affirmative was excluded from the poll.

The poll also differed in that it heavily sampled older Minnesotans. Only 35 percent of the poll’s respondents were under age 50, while 60 percent were 50 years old and over.

QEV has been the pollster of choice for the National Organization for Marriage which is part of the Minnesota for Marriage coalition.

Both testified that DOMA hurts same-sex couples who are legally married in several states. Franken told his colleagues that repealing the law would have not consequences for heterosexual couples, and that allowing same-sex marriage won’t make anyone gay.

The repeal effort passed the Senate Judiciary Committee 10-8. It still needs to pass a full vote on the Senate floor and faces opposition in the Republican-controlled House, although Minnesota Reps. Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum and Tim Walz are supporters of the House version.

Klobuchar said she was “struck” by the number of people who testified against DOMA in hearings last summer.

“They were discriminated against and unfairly harmed,” Klobuchar said. “They were denied protections like the ability to take off work to care for a dying partner and denied survivor benefits when a partner died.”

Klobuchar also said the issue wasn’t about religion.

“Whatever we vote on today and whatever happens today, the bill doesn’t require any church or mosque or synagogue to perform same-sex marriage. As the debate on this continues, we cannot lose sight of that,” she said.

Franken took issue with a statement by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who argued that marriage has always been defined as the union of one man and one woman. Franken argued that was false.

“In many cultures, men have been able to marry many women and young girls. For centuries, women have been treated as cattle in marriage. Further, if the religious purpose for marriage is procreation, why would we sanction marriage between an 89-year-old widower and an 80-year-old widow?” Franken said. “I just think we need to be accurate when we talk about the history of marriage, the history of man and woman, the history of our institutions.”

Franken spoke about couples in Minnesota who have been harmed by DOMA including a young couple who met in divinity school and married in Connecticut who have to lie on their federal tax forms and say they are single.

He talked about another Minnesota couple that married in Iowa, John and Jeff Westerfield. John was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

“Jeff won’t have the federal right to take a medical leave. If John passes, Jeff won’t see a dime from Social Security,” said Franken. “DOMA hurts people who love each other. DOMA hurts people who want to adopt kids and raise them and take care of them. DOMA hurts families.

“We need to pass this bill. Straight people aren’t suddenly going to become gay, Straight people aren’t going to stop getting married. We are going to be just fine. Really.”

The bill, dubbed the Respect for Marriage Act, passed the committee on a party-line vote.

Cleta Mitchell, a partner in Foley and Lardner, registered as a lobbyist on Oct. 26 to represent NOM. The HRC said it was downgrading Foley and Mitchell from 100 percent to 60 percent on its corporate equality index.

The Minnesota Independent first reported about Mitchell registering as a lobbyist at the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board last week. Mitchell’s expertise is in assisting Tea Party candidates and organizations with campaign finance laws. She’s helps candidates identify loopholes in the campaign finance system. The National Organization for Marriage has been urging the campaign finance board to relax disclosure laws so that it will not have to disclose its donors.

On Tuesday, HRC sent a letter to Jay Rothman, CEO of Foley and Lardner, alerting the firm that it was losing its 100 percent rating which it earned in 2010 and was being downgraded to 60 percent due to Mitchell’s involvement with NOM and the anti-gay marriage amendment in Minnesota.

“In a time when major corporations, including the nation’s top law firms, are taking unprecedented strides in support of LGBT equality with regards to their workplace practices and business activities, your firm has regrettably taken a notable step backwards,” the letter said. “In the 2010 [Corporate Equality Index], Foley & Lardner achieved a perfect 100 score. In the 2012 CEI to be released next month, your firm will drop further to a 60, one of the lowest scores earned by an Am Law firm in the upcoming report.”

Foley and Lardner had also worked for an anti-gay marriage group in Washington, D.C., in 2009, causing HRC to temporarily drop its rating.

We fully recognize that the legal profession has the duty to represent unpopular clients and take on controversial cases,” HRC wrote of the firm’s 2009 work. “Ms. Mitchell is a registered lobbyist on behalf of NOM in Minnesota, which goes well beyond any professional or ethical obligations of legal representation. Moreover, the firm has established a clear pattern of knowingly taking on anti-LGBT organizations as clients, even after we and others in the community expressed concerns.”

JoeSolmonese_letter_FoleyAndLardner_Nov2011

Opponents to the amendment seek broad, non-partisan support
Minnesotans United for All Families organized a series of house parties on Sunday that marked one year until the amendment vote.

Brian Barnes, a DFL candidate vying for the nomination to take on Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen in Minnesota’s Third Congressional District, participated in the event.

“On Sunday, my wife and I had the great honor of hosting an event in our home for Minnesotans United,” Barnes said in a statement. “It was truly inspiring to be surrounded by so many people committed to ensuring the right of marriage is extended to all citizens—regardless of their sexual orientation. Our state has always led this country in the cause of equality and opportunity for all Americans. And that charge lives on today.”

He added, “By standing together, I’m endlessly confident we will defeat this hateful amendment and write the next great chapter in the American story—one that has always evolved toward breaking down barriers and building a fairer, more just future for our friends and neighbors.”

State Sen. Patricia Torres Ray, Minneapolis City Council member Sandy Colvin Roy, and state Rep. Jim Davnie hosted an event in Minneapolis. Minnesota politicos including Tom Horner and Matt Entenza also participated.

Event organizers say more than 100 people opened their homes on Sunday for fundraisers in cities like Duluth, New Ulm, Moorhead and Winona.

Minnesotans United was also the beneficiary of another high-profile event, the Big Gay Race, held in mid-October. The event drew 1,500 participants who raised money and ran a 5K in downtown Minneapolis.

The event was organized in part by Jacob and Michelle Frey.

“My wife and I were both professional distance runners,” Jacob said at the time. “So we settled on staging a race. So that’s how the Big Gay Race came into being.” Jacob Frey is also a candidate to replace Sen. Larry Pogemiller who announced he was retiring last week.

Republicans Against the Minnesota Marriage Amendment released a statement on Sunday.

“A year from today, Minnesotans will vote on whether to ban same-sex marriages in our state constitution,” the group said. “The campaign will be hard-fought. In the next year, talk to fellow Republicans, your friends, family members, neighbors, and co-workers. Urge them to vote no. Volunteer your time to the campaign against the amendment. Dig deep into your wallet to stop this misuse of government power. We will win with principles and hard work.”

Marriage ban supporters make a religious case
Minnesota for Marriage The coalition working to pass the amendment marked one year out from the vote by releasing a video with testimonials from several attendees at the Minnesota State Fair in August.

In addition to the video, the group said it was also “calling on Minnesotans to set aside a special time this Sunday to pray for the passage of the Minnesota Marriage Protection amendment, commit to strengthening our own marriages, and then get active in the campaign!”

Late last week, the group also launched its Drive for Five campaign, which will include a $100 Visa Card contest for those who sign up five Minnesotans to get involved in promoting the amendment.

“Throughout our campaign, we intend to feature the voices of average Minnesotans who are willing to speak out about why they support marriage and are committed to preserving it by adopting the amendment,” said Minnesota for Marriage’s John Helmberger. “Our opponents have many in the media on their side, they have the cultural elite and they have billionaires in Colorado, Hollywood and on Wall Street to help them spread their message. We have the truth of marriage as understood by virtually every faith and proven throughout human history.”

Minnesota for Marriage is also conducting a series of information sessions around the state to build support for the amendment. One such meeting was held in Minneapolis in late-October.

A participant who asked not to be identified by name told the Minnesota Independent that the meeting had about 30 participants and was headed by former staffer for Rep. Michele Bachmann, Tim Gould, who is working for Minnesota for Marriage as the group’s grassroots organizer. Also heading up the meeting was Tim Hansen, the Minnesota Family Council’s church outreach director, and Cathy Deeds, who works as an outreach coordinator for the Minnesota Catholic Conference.

Minnesota for Marriage told meeting participants that they were working on a massive voter identification effort as well as finding supportive churches in every legislative district.

“It’s best to center on emotions,” the meeting participant recalled of the meeting’s strategy, saying they were urged to talk about the effect same-sex marriage would have on children and to use people’s belief in the Bible to make their arguments.

About 48 percent of Minnesotans support the amendment voters will judge on the November 2012 ballot, 43 percent are opposed to the ban and 8 percent are undecided.

The poll shows that people under 34 overwhelmingly rejected the amendment, 58 to 33 percent, and Minnesotans over 65 overwhelmingly approved of the ban at 70 percent to 26 percent. People who had higher incomes, higher education and lived in the Twin Cities metropolitan area were more likely to reject the amendment.

Predictably, the state split along party lines with Republicans supporting the amendment, 66 to 26 percent, and DFLers rejecting it 60 to 35 percent. Independents were split with 48 percent supporting it and 44 percent rejecting it.

The poll differs sharply with one conducted by the paper in May. That poll found that 55 percent opposed the amendment and 39 percent supported it, but that poll asked people to respond to the statement: ”Please tell me if you would favor or oppose amending the Minnesota constitution to ban same-sex marriage.”

The poll released on Tuesday asked an entirely different question: “Would you favor or oppose amending the Minnesota Constitution to allow marriage only between a man and a woman?”

As other pollsters have found, anti-gay marriage amendments lose support when those polled understand that in addition to defining marriage as between a man and a woman, such amendments bar same-sex couples from marrying.

Public Policy Polling which has been doing monthly polling on a similar amendment in North Carolina noted that there was a vast swing in support for the amendment depending on wording.

“Voters are against ‘prohibiting’ recognition for gay couples. But if you word it in such a way that all you’re doing is defining marriage as between one man and one woman, voters are ok with that,” said PPP’s Tom Jensen. “You’re asking about the same thing in both cases, but the semantics make a huge difference and Republicans clearly know what they’re doing with the language that’s on the ballot.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann at a rally last year. Photo: Patrick Caldwell

At a speech Monday hosted by the Family Research Council—a conservative Christian organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as a hate group—U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann said she would defeat socialism, described leading Republican candidates for the White House as “frugal socialists” and accused Pres. Barack Obama of working to “usurp” the U.S. Constitution.

She said “Washington D.C. will never look the same again after my administration.”

Would pursue federal amendment banning same-sex marriage
Bachmann repeatedly attacked Pres. Barack Obama saying he does not follow the U.S. Constitution.

“President Obama appears intent on ignoring our constitution by abusing his executive power when he chooses which laws he will uphold and which ones he will not,” she said. “We saw him say he will not uphold the law of the land, which is the Defense of Marriage Act.”

DOMA, passed in 1996, holds that the federal government will not recognize same-sex marriages, even those performed in states where it is legal.

She said she would have the American public vote to ban marriage rights for same-sex couples.

“I will work to protect American families from activist judges who are trying to dismantle marriage as a legal institution solely between one man and one woman. Some Republican candidates seem confused by this issue. I am not. It is at the core of my conviction.”

She added, “I want to and I will work for a federal marriage amendment so the courts cannot impose their will on this country. Only a federal marriage amendment can prevent the courts of one state from imposing same-sex marriage on us all.”

During the question period, Bachmann was asked to compare her stance on legal rights for same-sex couples compared to Mitt Romney, who has said he supports some rights for couples such as civil unions and domestic partnerships.

Bachmann dodged the question: ”Again, I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. I don’t believe in marriages with multiple genders and even multiple partners.”

On abortion, she went after her opponents. “Some Republicans seem to be confused about what it means to be pro-life. I believe it is the role of government to protect life from conception to natural death. I’ll never be confused about that issue and you won’t find you tube clips with me advocating otherwise. For starters, Planned Parenthood will be zeroed out if I am president.”

Bachmann says GOP candidates are ‘frugal socialists’
“President Obama believes in cultivating power unto himself and centralizing power unto himself, he’s been willing to engage in a massive redistribution of wealth and in the politics of an Occupy Wall Street envy to achieve his purposes.”

She said Obama’s stances should be contrasted “with the 10th commandment, which teaches that we should not covet what belongs to our neighbor.”

“I will work to eradicate socialism across the United States government. So many Republicans aspire to be frugal socialists. We can’t restore liberty if the choice a year from now is between a socialist and a frugal socialist,” alluding to Mitt Romney’s status as the GOP presidential front runner.

Urges defeat of child welfare treaty
She said she was also concerned that Obama will push to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty on child welfare that has been signed by all 196 members of the United Nations except for the United States and Somalia. It’s the most widely supported treaty in the world.

The United States hasn’t actually committed to the treaty. The Senate would have to ratify the treaty as it does all treaties.

The treaty is generally opposed by conservative Christian home-schooling groups and religious right leaders on the grounds that it may curtail parental rights, though things like homeschooling aren’t thought to be impacted by the treaty.

“This treaty would threaten the most basic unit of government, that many of you have come here to defend and that’s the family,” she said. “As president, I will withdraw the signature of the United States from this treaty.”

Bachmann believes in ‘liberty for lightbulbs’
On light bulbs, Bachmann said, “I championed the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act, I believe in liberty for light bulbs.”

Bachmann’s new book, Core of Conviction, will go on sale later this month. At least eight times during the press event, she mentioned the title of her book, “Core of Conviction,” without ever mentioning she had a forthcoming book.

Michele Bachmann, John Kline

Reps. Michele Bachmann and John Kline were among the signers of a letter to the U.S. Senate urging that body to pass an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would prohibit gay members of America’s Armed Forces from using military facilities for marriage ceremonies.

The Department of Defense, in the wake of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, has indicated that it will allow chaplains and same-sex couples to use facilities on a “sexual orientation-neutral basis,” something Republican members of the U.S. House oppose.

The letter was authored by Republican Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri and was signed by 86 members of the House.

“The Defense of Marriage Act was passed by a bipartisan vote in Congress and signed into law by President Clinton,” Akin said in a statement. “Unfortunately, this current administration is now directing the Department of Defense to ignore this law and perform gay marriages on military bases. I think this is wrong, which is why I offered an amendment to the House-passed defense bill making it clear that DOMA applies to the DOD. This letter calls for the Senate to add a similar amendment to their version of the bill. The Department of Defense should not be allowed to simply ignore laws they do not like.”

The House members complain that guidance by the Department of Defense General Counsel would make resources available to all members of the military. The general counsel guidance said that the “use of DoD real property and facilities for private functions, including religious and other ceremonies, should be made on a sexual orientation neutral basis.”

“This clear and deliberate violation of established U.S. law sets a dangerous precedent,” the letter states. “[The Defense of Marriage Act] makes it clear that for purposes of the federal government, marriage is defined as between one man and one woman. The use of federal property or federal employees to perform anything but opposite-sex ceremonies is a clear contravention of the law.”

The letter comes as same-sex couples in the military filed suit to overturn DOMA on Thursday in order to secure military benefits denied to them by the federal government.

The campaign asks each person to obtain five pledges to support the ban in order to be considered for a prize drawing. Drawing winners will receive a $100 Visa gift card. The drawing will be held daily through the month of November.

The group, which is made up of the Minnesota Family Council, the National Organization for Marriage and the Minnesota Catholic Conference announced the campaign on their Facebook page Wednesday afternoon: ”Minnesota For Marriage Announces Drive For Five! Help us grow our campaign by getting five people you know to pledge their support for marriage and protect it as between one man and one woman in November of 2012—and be eligible to win a $100 Visa Card.”

The campaign led bloggers to question whether such activity is illegal. Minnesota prohibits purchase of votes in elections, according to state statute:

Bribery, advancing money, and treating prohibited. A person who willfully, directly or indirectly, advances, pays, gives, promises, or lends any money, food, liquor, clothing, entertainment, or other thing of monetary value, or who offers, promises, or endeavors to obtain any money, position, appointment, employment, or other valuable consideration, to or for a person, in order to induce a voter to refrain from voting, or to vote in a particular way, at an election, is guilty of a felony. This section does not prevent a candidate from stating publicly preference for or support of another candidate to be voted for at the same primary or election. Refreshments of food or nonalcoholic beverages having a value up to $5 consumed on the premises at a private gathering or public meeting are not prohibited under this section.

The contest might pass legal muster as no one is guaranteed a payoff for signing people up, and the document asks people to “pledge their support for marriage and protect it as between one man and one woman in November 2012,” and doesn’t explicitly ask signers to vote.

Here’s the full document courtesy of Good As You.

MN4M_DriveFor5