Video: Minneapolis artist Amy Rice for Manifest Equality

It's an odd week for Minnesota: As bloggers and Twitterers tout the state being dubbed the nation's "gayest" and "hippest," the Minnesota Senate voted today in favor of a Republican plan to put a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on the ballot next year (despite the fact that such unions are already illegal here). Once it passes the House -- as is likely, since Republicans are the majority there, too -- it'll be up to the voters. Depressing, yes. But artist Amy Rice has a more hopeful stance. On Facebook today, she offered a link to a video for Manifest Equality that features her work. "Minnesota will vote for love," she writes. "I am sure of it."

Befitting art's long history of supporting equality for LGBT people, Manifest Equality was backed by a large number of art figures, including Edgar Arceneaux, UCLA Hammer Museum director Ann Philbin, Ed Ruscha, Barry McGee, Maya Hayuk, and many others. They follow the example the late Louise Bourgeois, who donated one of her last artworks to Freedom to Marry.

"Everyone should have the right to marry," Bourgeois, who died last May 31 at age 98, said of the project (quoted in a blog post here one year ago today). "To make a commitment to love someone forever is a beautiful thing."