Barb Berggoetz, writing for the Indianapolis Star, has an article about efforts by social conservative advocacy group, Advance America, to put pressure on lawmakers to pass the constitutional ban on marriage equality.
Advance America, a prominent conservative interest group supporting the proposed amendment, has asked legislators to answer a survey about their voting intentions by Wednesday.
. . .
[Eric] Miller, founder and executive director of Advance America, said in his Aug. 28 letter to legislators that he will compile the responses and “make them available to citizens around the state.”
The article goes into how the landscape and public opinion on gay marriage has changed since 2011 when the General Assembly last took up the issue.
I think there are at least a few of these guys who just wish this would go away. Not that that means they’ll stand up to Eric Miller– but they’ll damn sure NOT be answering that survey. If I were advising any of them, I’d argue against either signing surveys or revealing my position yet. They don’t stand for reelection until next NOV nor do they know what new insights might arise in the next few months.
BTW _ NOT that I am included in the Republican inner circle NOR do I wish to probe the depths (shallows) of their minds..
Somehow, I think that NOT answering in a timely fashion will be editorialized by this organization.
Shouldn’t the article have called him
“founder, executive director, and chief beneficiary of Advance America”
https://www.masson.us/blog/advance-indiana-on-advance-america-eric-miller/
My introduction to Eric Miller some 30 years ago was unpleasant. He incited some legislator to “strip” a bill and substitute some sort of freelance pro-life notion (i.e., not vetted by the major groups trying to form a viable strategy to reverse Roe). As I recall, the original bill had to do with violence against women. That symbolism was really swell.
After Indiana Right to Life worked very hard and mostly successfully at damage control, Miller touted his swell idea as proof that Advance America was now the leading pro-life group in the state.
Shameless.
“Advance America: Your Number One Source for Advance America Advocacy”
A new graphic may provide some perspective on this issue. In the recent Sojourner’s site, a new study from Humboldt University was mentioned. The folks at Humboldt have counted the hate-filled tweets throughout the country and plotted their strength. Indiana is a strong contender, which suggests that there are a lot of unhappy people here. Areas are specifically targeted for various terms relating to homophobic, racist and disability areas. You may be interested in looking at the map:
http://users.humboldt.edu/mstephens/hate/hate_map.html#