Michael McConnell and Jack Baker

Professor Thomas Kraemer insisted that FREE hosted "the first same-sex couple in history to be legally married". In 2018, "The [1971] marriage is declared to be in all respects valid."

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court answered the question they tried to resolve in 1972: "Do same-sex couples have a constitutional right to get married?" Yes, because all citizens have an inherent right to marry the adult of one's choice. As a friend of the court, Minnesota's Attorney General argued that the Minnesota Supreme Court's "procreation rationale" did not support its prohibition of same-sex marriage.

In 2012, University of Minnesota president Eric Kaler offered McConnell a personal apology for the "reprehensible" treatment endured from the Board of Regents in 1970. McConnell accepted his assurances and agreed to join the Heritage Society of the President's Club.

In 2003, Baker and McConnell amended their individual tax returns for the year 2000, filing jointly as a couple, offering proof of a valid marriage license from Blue Earth County. The IRS challenged the validity of the marriage and argued that, even if the license were valid, the Defense of Marriage Act prohibits the IRS from recognizing it. When McConnell brought suit, the U.S. District Court for Minnesota upheld the IRS ruling and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, saying that McConnell could not re-litigate a question decided previously.

In 1973, FREE continued working with U of M faculty to protect gay students from discrimination. Central Administration approved the final draft of a new policy in 1972 and the Campus Committee on Placement Services began accepting complaints of unequal treatment by employers recruiting on campus. A member of FREE received class credit for documenting his youth and why he supported America's first gay marriage, which was featured on WCCO-TV.

Their joint tax return for 1973 was rejected by the Internal Revenue Service. Likewise, the Veterans Administration rejected McConnell's request for spousal benefits. Undaunted, McConnell listed Baker as an adopted "child" on his tax returns for which he received a deduction as head of household from 1974 through 2004. That benefit ended when Congress limited the deduction to an individual under the age of 19.

The couple obtained a valid marriage license before the rejection in Hennepin County was appealed to and accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court. Though that case ended in 1972, "for want of a substantial federal question", other challenges followed as they pursued affirmation of their union while living openly as a married couple.

In 1972, Baker led the DFL Gay Rights Caucus at the State Convention of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party. The caucus persuaded delegates to endorse "legislation defining marriage as a civil contract between any two adults". That vote became the "first known case" of support by a major United States political party for same-sex marriage.

In late 1971, the Minnesota Supreme Court in Baker v. Nelson affirmed the lower court order to deny a marriage license to same-sex partners. Their appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was accepted but later dismissed.

Historians argued, correctly, that neither decision affected McConnell and Baker because the couple obtained a valid license from Blue Earth County when they re-applied in early 1971.

In 1971, Baker campaigned to become president of the Minnesota Student Association at the U of M. He was elected, then re-elected. The regents consented to his campaign promise and invited one student to sit with each committee as a non-voting member. That practice proved to be popular and became policy. The Governor later signed into law a bill reserving one seat on the Board of Regents for an enrolled student.

In 1971, Members of FREE from Gay House invited friends to meet at picnics in Loring Park, near Downtown Minneapolis. Such events, which encouraged self-pride, began in mid-June as a prelude to local celebrations of Independence Day. Thom Higgins, Prime Archon of the Church of the Chosen People, crafted Gay Pride for the banner that would lead the crowd as it encouraged allies, supporters and bystanders to punish the Catholic archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis for his public condemnation of both the gay life-style and self-pride as sinful.

In 1970, the University Librarian invited Michael McConnell to head the Cataloging Division on the university's St. Paul campus. The Board of Regents refused to approve the offer after McConnell applied for a marriage license and regent Daniel Gainey insisted that "homosexuality is about the worst thing there is."

McConnell, a librarian, and Baker, a law student, were gay activists in the U.S. state of Minnesota from 1969 to 1980. After their marriage in Minnesota on 3 September 1971, they were invited often to appear publicly at colleges, schools, businesses and churches in the U.S. and Canada.

In 1969, weeks before the Stonewall riots, two roommates recruited local friends to join a team called "Fight Repression of Erotic Expression" as part of an outreach program sponsored by Minnesota Free University. Robert Halfhill, a graduate student who attended their lecture, wanted more than "just a social organization". He left, determined to lead an independent group of "FREE" students and activists on the Minneapolis campus (U of M) of the University of Minnesota.

When a faculty committee qualified the members to receive all privileges enjoyed by student groups, it became "the first student gay organization to gain recognition in the upper mid-west." Its "leaders [believed] it to be the first such organization on a Big Ten campus", and the second such organization in the United States, following the Student Homophile League recognized by Columbia University in 1967.

James Michael McConnell (born 1942) and Richard John "Jack" Baker (born 1942) are the first same-sex couple to be married legally with a license that was never revoked. Their wedding became the earliest same-sex marriage ever to be recorded in the public files of any civil government.

Born in Norman, Oklahoma (1942), James Michael McConnell was raised and loved by his Baptist parents. After graduating from Norman High School, he attended the University of Oklahoma (OU), ending with an MLS Degree (Master of Library Science). Baker was born in Chicago (1942) and, after both parents died, spent grades 1 - 12 at Maryville Academy, a Catholic boarding school.