I love this paragraph from a post by Chris Douglas over at bilerico. He was describing a statement from Mark Gray, 90 year old attorney, founder of Keitlinger and Gray, and member of an old Indiana family who is, as Chris says, qualified as any to understand and express something deep in the sould of Hoosiers.
Having served on various national boards and commissions after World War II, Gray described to me his early caution to East Coast powerhouses who were assuming they could impose easily on Hoosier autonomy. He told them: “If the you want to work with Hoosiers, they’ll work with you. But if you try to tell ’em they HAVE to do something, their answer to you will be “The Hell We Do.”
Chris suggests that this sentiment is one of the reasons that SJR 7 failed yesterday at the hands of the House Rules committee but also after an outpouring of objections from editorial writers and business leaders alike. When the gay community insisted on changes to marriage the reaction was the same as when the social reactionaries insisted on campaigning against gays; Hoosiers dug in their heels.
It’s not always for the best, but Hoosiers are just plain ornery. To get them to do something, you have to convince them that a) it’s in their best interest; and b) they’re part of the decision making process.
Update Rather than putting up another blog post on SJR 7, I just wanted to flag a nice entry from Mike Kole on the subject. Mike comes at the issue from a libertarian (and Libertarian) perspective. He says:
I’m delighted with the result. It tears me up to think of a class of people being told that they are unwelcome in our state. That’s what SJR-7 would have done. One’s sexual orientation hurts nobody. It doesn’t pick your pocket. It doesn’t wound your body. It doesn’t change what you hold dear. Good riddance, SJR-7!
Government has no business regulating marriage. It would have been even nicer to hear any elected official say so, especially from a so-called “limited government conservative Republican”. This whole exercise proves that there aren’t any smaller government Republicans in Indiana.
Mr. Gray is a wonderful man and a pillar of the Indiana legal community. Until just a couple of years ago, he was coming into the office on a daily basis. His observation about Hoosiers is astute and accurate.
Still, I’m not sure I buy bilerico’s larger point. This amendment failed in committee because it was shoddily drafted. The Republicans cribbed the more ambiguous early draft of the Federal Marriage Amendment. I think Bosma unwittingly sealed its fate with his ham-handed proposal of a “here’s what we really meant” bill to accompany the amendment. Had it been better drafted, my unprovable guess is that at least one more Democrat would have gone along. As poorly drafted as it is, my sad prediction is that if the Republicans find a way to get this amendment passed in the 2008 session, it will be approved overwhelmingly by Indiana voters. I think this victory for justice had more to do with insider General Assembly stuff than with prevailing opinion among Hoosiers.
Well DST was forced on us and hardly anybody I’ve met likes that.I could care a less about this whole deal passing or failing but excuse me if I choose not to worry or care a heck of a lot about what businesses or editorial writers in newspapers think. This is the same crowd who supports amnesty for illegal aliens and wants hundreds of thousands of new guest workers to be allowed into our country not considereing the point that the US allows millions of new legal citizens and guest workers into our country every year anyway.
If it were up to businesses and corporate america we would all work seven days a week 16 hours a day for next to nothing.This is why business is so eager for the cheap labor to be imported to the US whether it be low skilled Mexicans or Central Americans or highly skilled people from India such as tech workers or engineers on the H-1 Visa program.This all helps keep wages and benefits low for American workers while the upper tier management cleans up!