Jack Baker (born Richard John Baker, 1942) is an American LGBT activist in the state of Minnesota. He and his partner, James Michael McConnell, were the first American gay couple to seek a marriage license and the first gay couple to establish a legal relationship via adult adoption.
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On May 18, 1969, (pre-Stonewall), the group Fight Repression of Erotic Expression (FREE), was founded at the University of Minnesota. It was the first campus organization run by and for gay students in the United States.[1] Jack Baker was its first President. A successor organization, the Queer Student Cultural Center, is officially recognized as a student group. Baker, however, rejects outright the label "Queer" as applied to him or his lover.
In 1971, Baker ran for President of the student body at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus. His theme, "Student Control over Student Concerns," urged students "to search out a new self-respect."
Baker attracted interest in his campaign with a poster that showed him crouched in casual jeans and lady's high-heeled pumps. The punch line was "Put Yourself in Jack Baker's Shoes". As a well-known gay activist, he was attacking both sexism and heterosexism. Distributed widely on campus, the poster attracted much attention. Most copies were stolen, only to reappear in dorm rooms. Later, some were offered for sale. (A copy of this poster is in the archives of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies of the University of Minnesota Libraries.)
Regents were stunned when Jack Baker won the election. He was the first openly gay person to be elected as student body president at any major university.
As student body president, Baker called on the legislature to appoint a student to the Board of Regents. Meanwhile, Baker persuaded the Regents to allow students to sit on Regent committees, and to start a student-run bookstore. He had also proposed that the University purchase a local FM radio station, and build student-owned and operated apartments. After Baker graduated from law school, the Governor signed a law requiring one Regent to be a student.
Baker was re-elected easily in 1972, something no other U of M student body president had ever done. Baker's sexual orientation was never a major issue. Focusing on campus issues, he campaigned on the need to complete projects he started. Baker was re-elected with 43% of the vote in a 9-way race.
On May 18, 1970 Baker & McConnell applied for a marriage license as a gay couple in Hennepin County, Minnesota. This is apparently the first attempted gay marriage in the United States. The Clerk of Court denied them a license. They sued and lost in District Court, appealed and lost in the Minnesota Supreme Court, and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which dismissed the case for want of a substantial federal question. The case opinion, Baker v. Nelson, has been frequently cited as precedent in various gay marriage cases since then.
Later in 1971, the couple applied for and were awarded a marriage license in Mankato, Blue Earth County, and were married before a Methodist minister (Rev. Roger Lynn) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They maintain that they are legally married under this license; the government claims that the Supreme Court ruling automatically makes this marriage license null and void. During the early 1970s, they filed joint tax returns, which were accepted by the IRS. In 2004, after passage of Defense of Marriage Act, their joint tax return was rejected, and they filed suit against the IRS.
In June 1972, at the State Convention of the DFL (Democratic) party, Baker and other LGBT delegates persuaded the Convention to adopt a Party platform plank supporting equal marriage rights for all adults. This is believed to be the first support for gay marriage by any major United States political party.
In an attempt to obtain legal recognition of their relationship and protect their rights, they sought to have McConnell legally adopt Baker. In August, 1971, this adult adoption was approved in Hennepin County. Under the adoption decree, Baker was given the name Pat Lyn McConnell (though he has not used that name since then, continuing to use his birth name). This is believed to be the first adult adoption between an openly gay couple. After the adoption, the couple discovered that besides inheritance rights, this entitled them to decreased tuition (family resident rates) at the University of Minnesota, where they were both students at the time.[2]
In 2002, he ran as a candidate for Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. He lost to incumbent Paul H. Anderson. Baker won 30% of the vote, the highest vote total a challenger has ever received.[3]
They remain committed to each other and continue to live in a modest home in South Minneapolis. McConnell is currently a Coordinating Librarian for Library Services in the Hennepin County Library system. Baker is retired from his corporate law practice. He is active in the Lyndale Neighborhood Association and writes occasional articles for local newspapers;
