ST. PAUL — A Republican state senator who supports legalizing gay marriage in Minnesota said Wednesday that he hopes to convince GOP colleagues to join him in abandoning the party’s traditional stand on the issue.

Sen. Branden Petersen, a likely co-sponsor of a gay marriage bill to be introduced soon at the Capitol, is the first Republican lawmaker to signal support for allowing same-sex couples to wed.

Petersen said his backing hinges on a few conditions being met, chief among them that religious exemptions that don’t want to perform same-sex marriages would be exempt from doing so. That provision has been a common feature of gay marriage legislation in other states.

“I think the time has come,” Petersen told The Associated Press, arguing that it’s the conservative position to let gays join an institution that’s one of society’s fundamental building blocks. He said he hoped his support would sway not just his fellow Republicans wavering on the issue, but Minnesotans in general that it’s OK to support gay marriage.

Nailing down Republican support is significant for gay marriage activists preparing for what’s likely to be a divisive debate later this spring at the Capitol. While Democrats control the House and Senate, some of the party’s rural members hail from socially conservative areas where a majority of voters last fall backed the failed constitutional gay marriage ban.