Difference between revisions of "Baker Law Associates"
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Revision as of 16:00, 26 February 2010
#412 Loring Park Office Building, 430 Oak Grove Street
Jack Baker is a man of many firsts: he became a member of the first GLBT student group in Minnesota, the first openly gay candidate for the University of Minnesota’s student body presidency (he became the first openly gay student body president), the first person to file suit for gay marriage rights in the United States (with his partner, Michael McConnell—he did not win), and a participant in the first Twin Cities Pride celebration.
His office was located in the Loring Park Office Building, a structure that resulted from property speculation in the 1920s, which assumed that Loring Park would become the jewel of a profitable civic center. Instead, the stock market crash forever sealed the building’s fate as a well-designed glut of office space in an otherwise predominantly residential/retail neighborhood. This proved serendipitous for GLBT professionals, who took advantage of the building’s affordable rent and prime location within the “Gay Ghetto.”
Baker and McConnell applied for a marriage license in the Old Minneapolis Courthouse on May 18th, 1970, and the application was subsequently denied. The two sued the County Clerk, lost, and subsequently took their case through the court system, finally appealing to the United States Supreme Court, which dismissed the case. The two later received a license in the city of Mankato, married before a minister, and consider themselves legally married. Baker continued his political activism—he fought the Minnesota Bar Association and became the first openly gay lawyer to practice law.
- Jack Baker's "Good Life" (signed)
- Truite arc-en-ciel.jpg
Eine Forelle
Along with civil rights advocacy cases, Baker’s law practice was interestingly invested in another apparent first: it was the sponsor of Bunyan and Co., a "local Gay-owned, Gay-serving development project." This project, though never built, the project is interesting because it is indicative of a separate LGBT society that activists dreamed of in the 1970s.
This page is still under construction. --SVC
Part of Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN: 100 Queer Places in Minnesota History, (1860-1969), (1969-2010)
