Planned Parenthood weighs in on marriage, voter ID amendments
You can add Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota to the mix of organizations working to defeat two constitutional amendments on the ballot this fall.
The group has created two political funds it will use to work against the marriage amendment, which seeks to define marriage as between one man and one woman, and the voter ID amendment, which would require voters to show photo identification at the polls.
While the two issues may not appear to overlap with Planned Parenthood's mission, government and public affairs director Timothy Stanley said the two ballot initiatives are important to the people Planned Parenthood works with.
"We work in coalitions with all these groups every day, from doing combined outreach to vulnerable communities that need health care, to working in political coalitions with groups that are fighting for LGBT rights right along side our fight for women's health care."
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Planned Parenthood's board of directors has passed resolutions opposing the two amendments, Stanley said.
Rather than raise money for Minnesotans United for All Families, the primary group working to defeat the marriage amendment, and Our Vote Our Future, the main organization working to defeat the voter ID amendment, Planned Parenthood plans to use its own staff and resources to campaign specifically on those two amendments.
Stanley said that Planned Parenthood will be phoning, mailing and using social media to "make sure that people who support Planned Parenthood know that we are standing alongside the communities that are affected by these two amendments and we are calling on our supporters to vote no on these amendments."
A KSTP/SurveyUSA poll out yesterday shows that both amendments have enough support to pass.
But on the marriage amendment, Minnesotans United for All Families is winning the money race raising more cash than those working to pass the amendment, according to recent finance reports.