MPR’s Sasha Aslanian talks with members of a Catholic family about their take on upcoming marriage amendment vote. Maureen Scallen, a lesbian in a long-term relationship, wonders whether the loyalty of her siblings will be tested by a proposed Minnesota constitutional amendment that would define marriage as only being between a man and woman.
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SASHA ASLANIAN: 52-year-old Eileen Scallen of Minneapolis plans to vote against the amendment. It would create a constitutional barrier to marrying her partner of 14 years. Scallen is a lifelong Catholic, so are her five siblings. The Catholic Church strongly supports the amendment. Scallen doesn't know how her siblings will vote. The Scallens grew up in annunciation parish in South Minneapolis in the '50s and '60s.
EILEEN SCALLEN: Our entire block was Catholic.
SASHA ASLANIAN: Scallen was number four out of six kids, three boys and three girls. They all attended Catholic schools. Church in their family was mandatory, even on summer vacation.
EILEEN SCALLEN: Even when we went up to our cabin at Gull Lake, my oldest brother Tom, his friends used to say that they only went to church at weddings, funerals, and Scallen's cabin.
SASHA ASLANIAN: Growing up, the Scallen kids learned that homosexuality was a sin. So it was a bit of a shock to most of her siblings when Eileen came out as a lesbian 16 years ago. She was 36 and living in San Francisco at the time.
EILEEN SCALLEN: Everything made sense, and I felt more myself than I ever had. It was just magical.
SASHA ASLANIAN: Scallen met and fell in love with Marianne Norris, a former nun and mother of two grown daughters. Norris was working as a school principal in Minnesota. In 1999, the two wanted a commitment ceremony, but Scallen says they had a dilemma.
EILEEN SCALLEN: I knew my brothers and sisters were not ready. They were not ready for that.
SASHA ASLANIAN: So they held a private ceremony without their families, just the two of them, and a friend as a witness. And as meaningful as the ceremony was to them, it didn't give them the legal protections of marriage. They've drawn up wills and health directives to protect the one who outlives the other. But Scallen is quick to point out they can't write up contracts to give themselves all the rights of married couple has. They can't sue for wrongful death or receive survivors benefits from Social Security.
Scallen says their inability to marry has had very real costs. When the two met, Norris was near retirement in Minnesota and more financially vulnerable if she were uprooted. So Scallen gave up her teaching job at Hastings College of Law in San Francisco.
EILEEN SCALLEN: If we had been able to get married, I wouldn't have had to leave Hastings my job before, and I wouldn't have had to leave San Francisco because Marianne could have had my pension. If something happened to me, she could have had the same benefits that I had, and so it wouldn't have been a problem.
SASHA ASLANIAN: Scallen moved back to Minnesota, where she's now a law professor at William Mitchell College of Law. Norris is retired. Scallen is able to talk to a reporter with a microphone sitting in her sunroom about why marriage matters. But when it comes to raising the issue with her five siblings, it's a tougher conversation to have.
EILEEN SCALLEN: Your relationships with your brothers and sisters, it's just much harder to pierce that barrier of privacy and revealing my very vulnerable self. It kind of goes right to the heart of my most important relationship, and the fact that they might not honor that, and I might find that out, is really painful.
SASHA ASLANIAN: The issue isn't whether her siblings accept her partner, they embrace Norris as part of the family years ago, to Scallen, it's about whether their relationship should be entitled to the same legal status enjoyed by straight couples. Scallen isn't planning to ask her siblings how they'll vote on the amendment, so I did. Tommy Scallen is the eldest. He works as an events promoter in Downtown Minneapolis. He hasn't talked with his sister much about same-sex marriage.
TOMMY SCALLEN: Well, to be honest with you, I don't even know how Eileen feels about it. I mean, I know how she feels about the amendment, but I don't know if she thinks it's any huge deal that has to be done.
SASHA ASLANIAN: Scallen is a practicing Catholic, but he says like birth control and divorce, issues many Catholics are at odds with the church on, he plans to vote against the amendment.
TOMMY SCALLEN: I want my sister to be happy, and if two people want to make this commitment and they're serious about it and they go ahead and do it, so be it. Fine. Success to them. Good luck. It's a tough road. So you know, I just I want to see people happy. I don't really want to dictate how they live their lives.
SASHA ASLANIAN: Sheila Gregory, the second oldest of the Scallen siblings, lives in Edina, and isn't sure how she's going to vote.
SHEILA GREGORY: I haven't given the subject a whole lot of thought right now, and didn't even realize it was going to be an amendment on the ballot next year.
SASHA ASLANIAN: Last fall, when Gregory got a DVD the archdiocese mailed to Catholics, urging a vote to protect traditional marriage, she didn't watch it.
SHEILA GREGORY: I got it. And I just thought, oh, no, I'm not even going to look at it. Because I figured it might upset me that the church has come down with such a harsh opinion. I mean, these are people who just want to live their lives.
SASHA ASLANIAN: Next in the birth order is Patrick Scallen, another attorney in the family. He bought the Scallen ancestral home in Minneapolis from their late mother and attends annunciation church, the parish where they all grew up. Like Sheila, Patrick doesn't know how he'll vote on the amendment yet. He's struggling between what he's seen of his sister's relationship with Norris and the position of the church.
PATRICK SCALLEN: If the church says this is the way it is, I genuinely want to believe that and toe the line. But there are some issues, and this is probably one of them that bears more thought. There are teachings of the church that have evolved and changed, and maybe this is one of them.
SASHA ASLANIAN: The youngest sister in the family is Maureen Scallen Failor. She lives in Bloomington. Scallen Failor describes herself as a fiscal conservative and a social liberal.
MAUREEN SCALLEN FAILOR: Will I vote? I honestly can't say one way. I'm almost a point to not vote just to make a statement that government has no place in this. That is kind of where my position is at.
SASHA ASLANIAN: Scallen Failor knows if she leaves the question blank, it will count as a no vote and help her sister. It would be her way of protesting the issue being on the ballot. The archbishop has made the passage of the marriage amendment a top political priority, Scallen Failor sees it differently.
MAUREEN SCALLEN FAILOR: I'm in more in disagreement with the church than I am in agreement, and right now, I'm not really happy with the Catholic Church. However, that is where I find my God. So I kind of put the institution of the religion to the side.
SASHA ASLANIAN: Scallen Failor's twin, Tim Scallen, was the only sibling who didn't want to be interviewed. He said he preferred to keep his views private, but he loves and supports his sister. So if you're keeping a tally, Eileen Scallen has one sibling who will vote with her against the amendment, two say they don't know which way they'll vote, and one might not even vote on the amendment.
12 years ago, Scallen and Norris held their commitment ceremony without their families because Scallen didn't think her siblings were ready to embrace a gay couple. So what would her siblings do today if their sister could get married? Would they come?
TOMMY SCALLEN: Well, of course. Yeah. I mean, she's my sister, and I love her and I want her to be happy.
SHEILA SCALLEN: Of course, yeah.
PATRICK SCALLEN: If she was part of a legal wedding ceremony, yes, I'd be there to support her.
MAUREEN SCALLEN FAILOR: Absolutely, with bells on. She was there for my wedding. She was my maid of Honor. So absolutely.
SASHA ASLANIAN: The question is whether that marriage would ever be legal in Minnesota. Sasha Aslanian, Minnesota Public Radio News.
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