ST. PAUL – The Minnesota State Senate voted on Monday to allow gay couples to marry, clearing the way for Minnesota to become the 12th state in the nation to permit same-sex marriage and the first in the Midwest to do so without a court ruling.

The vote was 37 to 30. The State House approved the measure on Thursday, and Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, said through his office that he would sign it into law on Tuesday.

“These families deserve the same rights and recognitions that we do,” State Senator John Marty, a Democrat, said, as hundreds of people on both sides of the issue gathered in the Capitol, singing, waving signs and shouting loud enough to be heard inside the Senate chamber as the debate went on before the vote. “It’s finally happening,” Mr. Marty said.

Senator Carla Nelson, a Republican, opposed the measure, saying it “denies the right of a different opinion.”

“We must respect religious freedom at the same time that we advance rights,” she said. …

Read Civil Beat’s Off The Beat: As History Is Made, Hawaii Studies Gay Marriage.

Photo courtesy Mulad.

—Chad Blair