1971 same-sex marriage makes Minnesota couple the nation’s first
Minnesota same-sex marriage milestone
Minnesota's Jack Baker and Michael McConnell married in 1971, becoming the first same-sex couple to legally tie the knot, but it wasn't so simple: Blue Earth County initially issued the certificate of marriage, but refused to record it, saying it was defective – setting off a legal battle that wasn’t settled until 2018.
BLUE EARTH CO., Minn. (FOX 9) - Marriage was already on the minds of Jack Baker and Michael McConnell by the time they moved to Minnesota in 1969.
Making a marriage
Some trickery:
After Hennepin County rejected their first application, Jack changed his name to the gender-neutral Pat Lynn McConnell and the couple convinced Blue Earth County to issue a certificate for marriage in 1971.
On Sept. 3, in a hot south Minneapolis duplex, they exchanged rings.
"Michael and Jack have pledged their faith," said Pastor Roger Lynn as he concluded the nuptials. "They have publicly declared their love. I declare that they are to live together and are now joined in marriage."
Lynn was a Methodist pastor who performed the ceremony and signed the marriage certificate because he believed you should not be measured by whom you love.
"And I thought that the church should be in the role of supporting relationships, supporting long-term relationships rather than opposing them," he told us 54 years later during an interview at Mears Park in St. Paul.
The couple wore matching white pantsuits and sealed their vows with a kiss.
Friends and family members celebrated the union with a tiered cake topped by two grooms, a custom design by Paul Hagen, who also served as photographer and host.
"I had no sense of the gravity or importance of it," Hagen said Monday. "I thought it was really cool that they were doing it."
Happily ever after?
A fight for recognition:
But Jack and Michael knew they still had a fight ahead.
"They issued the marriage license," Baker said in an appearance on the nationally syndicated David Susskind Show in 1973. "We had it solemnized by a United Methodist minister, and it's all very, very legal."
Blue Earth County refused to record the marriage, calling it defective.
But Michael and Jack insisted on their legal right to marry in court, and when they went on a syndicated national talk show in 1973.
"We're going to win eventually," Baker said to Susskind. "Not this time, maybe the next time around."
They lost in Minnesota’s Supreme Court and again at the U.S. Supreme Court.
But they kept fighting.
And in 2018, five years after Minnesota legalized same-sex marriage, the state recognized theirs from 1971.
Love defined
Keeping score:
Their history is a collection of its own in the Tretter Collection at the University of Minnesota.
Their fight for gay liberation spread across the decades in magazine stories, TV appearances, and binder after binder of letters — between Jack and Michael, and also from friends, fans and haters.
"I think for younger folks who get to see these records, it also just provides a lot of courage and hope and understanding," said Tretter Collection curator Dr. Aiden Bettine. "We have been here for a long time. We've been fighting for a time."
The fight defines them, but so does an everyday love letter or Valentine’s Day card.
Michael and Jack shy away from interviews these days, but they referred us to friends who say their love has endured partly because it’s simple and true.
"They were the first gay couple I'd ever met," said Hagen, who had recently left the Army and come out when he met them. "And I was blown away by how unremarkable it was."
"They are just people in a loving relationship that endures and goes through various ups and downs through the years," said Lynn. "It's one of my more successful marriages."
Almost 54 years and counting.