In a sign of how brutal the fight over next year's marriage amendment will be, Minnesota's campaign regulators' Tuesday decision on how contributions should be governed sparked vastly different interpretations.
The state agency's board director said the ruling was a narrow definition. An attorney for the National Organization for Marriage, which supports defining marriage as only the union of one man and one woman, said the opposite. It's a broad interpretation that could mean donors' names would be disclosed beyond what the law requires, said attorney Cleta Mitchell.
The dispute is only a prelude of what's to come in Minnesota. The constitutional question whether to define marriage will attract millions of dollars and a national spotlight to the 2012 vote.
The board's Tuesday decision may not be the final word. In other states, the question of whether donors to marriage amendment campaigns should be disclosed have sparked drawn out litigation and those involved in Minnesota predicted the same could happen here.
Read the memo and guidance the board considered below:
