The Indiana Law Blog has been a fantastic resource for longer than I have been blogging. It most generally provides solid information while avoiding opinion. So, when it does take a position, it’s worth taking notice. Today the ILB has an entry entitled “Indiana Law – Some thoughts on HJR 3: The time to speak out is now“.
I was a law student during the civil rights movement, a young attorney during the women’s rights movement, and now in my 70s feel privileged to be witnessing a revolution of gender equality.
But while barriers to same sex marriage are coming down across the nation, some of us in Indiana are determined to put in place new fortifications, ones that could take years to remove (except through the federal courts), and ones that may assure years of legal battles at the state level.
I think this General Assembly should stop HJR 3 now, before needlessly damaging our State’s reputation as a welcoming, 21st century place to live and work. The optimal time to stop HJR 3 would be to never vote it out of first house committee.
I agree. And, as I’ve mentioned before, the “let the people vote” rationale for sending it out of committee is disingenuous. It’s disingenuous because there is no “legalize gay marriage” option on the ballot. There is no “a legal status substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall be valid” option. For same sex couples, the vote is a “heads you win, tails I lose” vote. The General Assembly should strangle this constitutional amendment in its cradle.
This is crazy, nuts and just plain stupid. Please the people and legislators that want to ban gay marriage please turn on your TV. There are gay people everywhere! Modern family, House Hunters, Glee heck I can go on and on! They shop in stores right next to you, they attend your church, some even have kids that play sports with your kids. Some are people that believe in God other are agnostics, they come in every color, shape and size! This is what United States of America is all about! I think are fore fathers said it best…
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”
That all gay people want…
But, any review of our nation’s history reveals many laws that were based on at least in large part on a religious basis, such as rights of people of color (and in some cases religion), rights of women, rights of land owners vs poor folks, etc. etc.. In general most people in this country have serious problems with the many legal situation (and the many deaths) associated with religious beliefs currently still going on around the world, but we do it too.
You know that, and I know that. But lots of people don’t have the faintest idea of what this means. Why? Because they simply feel they have the right, no, the OBLIGATION to regulate the manner in which people have sex. That’s what they are fixated upon, not families nor freedom.
The more galling point now is that the Speaker has now indicated he’ll replace members of the committee until they vote the way he wants. Their whole “let the people vote” BS gets turned upside down when this happens.
I have two thoughts on it. They want it on the ballot to fire up conservative’s emotions. It’s really a 2014 GOTV stimulus. Although, given all that has happened, there is probably a big chunk of the GOP that wants it to go away. They probably wish they hadn’t gerrymandered quite so much, then there would be a few more Democrats around to help kill it, without needing so many GOP votes to kill it.