Why The Indiana House Should Have Passed SJR 7

Homosexual Activist Wayne Besen Makes a Strong
Case for State and Federal Marriage Protection Amendments

"(T)he California Supreme Court may...come out in favor of same-sex marriage as early as May 23. ...If same-sex marriage becomes a reality in America's largest and most influential state -- and is not overturned by a Constitutional Amendment -- it will be the biggest earthquake to hit in years. The sheer number of couples who will marry (and divorce, it is California, after all) will forever change this debate. It will cause a legal mess, as many of these married couples -- often with children -- migrate to states that still discriminate. The consequences of such relocations will force the entire country to grapple with this issue. No longer will the debate be theoretical, but will focus on the discrimination endured by families whose married status vanishes the moment they cross state lines."

http://www.pridesource.com/article.shtml?article=30056

If this scenario put forth by this hopeful homosexual activist (Wayne Besen) is accurate, it will be exactly what many of our nation's founders feared, one large state dictating the public policy of the others.

This battle will be well worth watching. Even in the liberal state of California, a public question was passed overwhelmingly in which voters said that marriage should be only between one man and one woman. (Prop 22) In November, California voters may also be allowed to vote on a constitutional amendment to protect marriage and the importance of both genders to the cornerstone of the family. This is important since, as Besen observes (and hopes), a California court may ignore the will of the people claerly expressed through Prop 22.

In so doing, a liberal judge may well define marriage down to merely the bringing together of two or more people rather than being what it always has been, the bringing together of the two sexes for a vital societal unit.

Ignored by much of the media, however, is the fact that over one million signatures in support of a marriage amendment have already been gathered, far more than is needed to put the measure on the ballot. The impact that effort will have, and the impact of a judge's agenda, is something both sides of this debate will be closely watching.

Until then, it is a painful lesson to observe for the remaining minority of states like Indiana which have not passed Marriage Protection Amendments. Because of the obstructionism of legislators like Speaker of the House Patrick Bauer and Rules Committee Chairman Scott Pelath, whenever other state courts lurch leftward to redefine the family, Indiana's statutes seem woefully unprotected. . . but maybe that's exactly what Indiana House leadership wanted.

Comments

[Don Sherfick]

Micah, until you and your colleages come clean concerning the concealment of SJR7's origins in the FMA and your own knowledge of its flaws (as acknowledged in testimony by a couple of your own touted "conservative legal scholars" before Congress when you gave it to Senator Hershman, don't blame the Democrats in the House for protecting the people of Indiana from what you all knew well was being misrepresented. When the topics were brought up, you folks turned tail and ran far away from these important issues, and continue to this day to maintain a conspiracy of silence concerning them. You even managed to deceive supportive Indiana Republicans concerning the internal disagreements concerning the meaning of SJR7. I challange you and your colleagues to discuss fully what your most renowned conservative legal scholar meant when he characterized SJR7's language as "poorly drafted." I also challange you and your colleagues to acknowledge and fully discuss the internal disagreement among conservative legal scholars as to your claim that SJR7 would still permit "full" legislated civil unions. Your dodging and weaving concerning these matters, so patently apparent when exposed this past year, is certainly not flattering.

You know well, too, that the strong and binding precent which those "activist undlected judges" of the Indiana Supreme Court will continue to support existing law banning the recognition of same-sex marriage in Indiana.

Start being candid about the background and internal legal controversy over the meaning of your pet constitutional measure before you start bashing those who took the time to study and realize what you were really trying to foist on the people of Indiana.

[Micah Clark]

Don,

You must be off your medicine, because your post is not rational.

By the way, when were you a part of all our conference calls on SJR 7 with various legal experts and law professors. Did I give you the pass codes? You seem to claim to insider info that none of us had. . . that's rather remarkable.

You don't know me. You weren't part of any of the discussions about SJR 7, nor do you obviously know anything about the origin of SJR 7.

You are completely wrong about what "our legal scholars" (whom you apparently can't even name) have said.

You are simply repeating goofy gay activist rhetoric that has no basis in fact. Do you people really think that we had a freshman Colorado Congresswoman, whom none of us have ever met, draft our Indiana bill? Why would we do that?

In my 17 yrs working in the legislative process, I have never helped introduce any bill that was first vetted, drafted, approved or even modeled after a member of congress' legislation. Congressional legislation is so much different than Indiana legislation in style, format and language that its like comparing apples to oranges. (Here's a helpful hint before you keep running with your conspiracy theory Don: Research the acronym, LSA and find out who they are and what they do.)

Your post is ridiculous and nothing more than gay activist urban myth. You guys are more into conspiracies than those late night radio UFO guys.

Thus, your call to come clean of our hidden secret is flat silly.

Here's the facts. SJR 7 was not legally flawed, legal scholars were not covering its flaws, nor was any supporter hiding a deep secret about its flaws.

The only thing with any truth to it is that a noted law school professor from South Bend would not support it because it did not do what Michigan and Ohio's laws did concerning civil unions and state institutions. He considered SJR 7 to modest and weak. . . but not legally flawed. This fact was, unfortunately, not what you were insinuating.

Facts, Don, are troublesome things, but try to stick to them and not silly rumors you have heard from people who were never a part of our efforts to protect marriage, and have a vested political interest in spreading falsehoods as a way to block a popular issue.

[Don Sherfick]

Micah, Micah.

I will respond point by point a bit later, but my initial reaction is: "Methinks the man protesteth too much." I think I touched a bit of a nerve.

I would only note here preliminarily is that it was YOUR folks who made much of the commonality between SJR7 and the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, and went to great lengths to provide information concerning what Colorado Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave had to say about the term "legal incidents of marriage" in the FMA, in order to attempt to explain that it meant the same thing in SJR7. What other cliams the you and yours made concerning the commonality between the two do you now wish to disavow with a convenient bit or revisionist history of what was said in Indiana legislative hearings?

[Don Sherfick]

Micah, in your response to my first comment, you state:

“In my 17 yrs working in the legislative process, I have never helped introduce any bill that was first vetted, drafted, approved or even modeled after a member of congress' legislation. Congressional legislation is so much different than Indiana legislation in style, format and language that its [sic] like comparing apples to oranges. (Here's a helpful hint before you keep running with your conspiracy theory Don: Research the acronym, LSA and find out who they are and what they do.)”

I’m quite familiar with what LSA means: The Legislative Services Agency, which is a bipartisan adjunct to the Indiana General Assembly charged with dealing with the “style, format, and language” that you speak of. And in mentioning the LSA it appears that you had some familiarity with what LSA did concerning SJR7.

With that in mind (also keeping in mind your assertion that I know nothing about the origins of SJR7) let me first lay out for you and the readers of Veritas Rex the original text of the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment:

“Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the Constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couple or groups.”

(You can continue to ignore, as your colleagues conveniently do, that Judge Robert, one of your patron legal saints, and a prime drafter of the FMA, told Congress in 2004 that the above language was, in his exact words “poorly drafted”, and as a result changes were made. I’ll get to that subsequently for you and your readers.)

Now look at SJR7:

“Marriage in Indiana consists only of the union of one man and one woman. This Constitution or any other Indiana law may not be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents of marriage be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.”

Aside from the pretty basic concept that a state amendment wouldn’t talk about federal things, and hence the difference there, what significant difference did LSA (or you, or the other proponents of SJR7) see in the “style, format, and language” that, in your words, were like comparing “apples and oranges”? Please enlighten us all as to how "construed to require", and "legal incidents" have a difference in meaning between the FMA and SJR7.

I don’t see any. But since you declare me totally ignorant of SJR7’s origins, I’m sure you have the answer at your fingertips, or can get one from your legal resources. And I’m sure, that unlike how you term my efforts, what you will carefully parse concerning this subject will be imminently "rational".

[Micah Clark]

Don,

You have switched gears on your original post which was that I was to come clean on your conspiracy theory that we had somehow worked with congressional originators of the FMA to get SJR 7 and somehow we knew SJR 7 was flawed, and they were telling us this but we hid it. .. until you blew the lid off our secret.

That's all bunk. It is a story floated out there by the opponents of SJR 7 who pointed to some congressional statements that happen to line up with similar language to SJR 7, but were about the Federal Amendment. They see what they want to see, even when its not there.

I can tell you that this statement you have found is is nothing more than coincidence and while you may see it as a smoking gun . . .its not. Its pure silliness and grasping at straws.

I am glad you realize that LSA drafts Indiana legislation and not Congressmen from other states.

SJR 7 is a state amendment. What people in DC say about FMA is not relevant unless they are specifically talking about the impact of SJR 7 on Indiana law based upon Indiana cases.

I have never spoken to John Roberts and what he onc said about FMA has no relevance to the Indiana Amendment and your post is the first time I have ever seen it. I promise, none of our legal advisors have said, "My goodness look what Roberts said, we're sunk."

I hope that this doesn't burst your bubble, but the advice we receive on SJR 7 is from numerous lawyers who have dealt with dozens of state amendments in state legislatures and courts across the nation on marriage issues. . . Its not from the Congressional Record or Comments made at 2 am on C-Span by some congressman reading a two-minute speech written by a 24 yr old DC staffer.

But you should know this . . you were there. You claimed to know that we have been hiding the advice we received on the flaws of SJR 7 in our super-secret meetings. . . that you said we are to "come clean on"

Well, I've gotta go, Ron Paul is calling give me instructions what legislation I need to introduce next year to keep the black helicopters away, and to pull us out of the UN, and to fight the Trilateralists at the CFR. . . want me to conference you in?

[Micah Clark]

Don,

I just saw your double post and missed this one in which you said:

Micah, Micah. I will respond point by point a bit later, but my initial reaction is: "Methinks the man protesteth too much." I think I touched a bit of a nerve. I would only note here preliminarily is that it was YOUR folks who made much of the commonality between SJR7 and the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, and went to great lengths to provide information concerning what Colorado Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave had to say about the term "legal incidents of marriage" in the FMA, in order to attempt to explain that it meant the same thing in SJR7. What other cliams the you and yours made concerning the commonality between the two do you now wish to disavow with a convenient bit or revisionist history of what was said in Indiana legislative hearings?

This is a crock. . .unless you know more of "my people: than I do. I know of no one who linked SJR 7 to the FMA. I have never quoted Rep. Musgrave, and I don't know anyone who has concerning SJR 7 except you. . . where's the evidence of our "great lengths" to link the two?

Do some research about what has actually been said before simply regurgitating gay propaganda about SJR 7.

I have responded to the "Incidents of marriage" item but not with anything from Musgrave Gee Whiz, why would I?

The term appears in several STATE amendments,and SJR 7 is a STATE amendment, so I have pointed to those states to show that there has been no problem with that phrase in states which have had amendments for years. (Its a straw dog argument with no basis in real experience in any other states, that is raised most often by Sen. Lanane and Rep. Pelath).

Your post reveals to me that you know only what the homosexual activists are falsely claiming, but nothing about what pro-family leaders have actually been saying in Indiana.

[Don Sherfick]

Micah: You say:

"This is a crock. . .unless you know more of "my people: than I do. I know of no one who linked SJR 7 to the FMA. I have never quoted Rep. Musgrave, and I don't know anyone who has concerning SJR 7 except you. . . where's the evidence of our "great lengths" to link the two?"

Well, I haven't gotten back to notes in which either your advocate attorney James Bopp or Senator Brandt Hershman, or perhaps both, mentioned Representative Musgrave at the Indiana Senate Judiciary Hearing in early 2007, but insofar as your denial that anyone had ever linked SJR7 to the FMA, how about this piece from a February 14, 2007 letter proponents introduced into the record of the 2007 House Rules and Legislative Policy Committee in the same year. It came from the Catholic University of America's Marriage Law Project, and had been sent to Glenn Tebbe of the Indiana Catholic Conference. After laying out SJR7 and the FMA in parallel columns, it states:

"The Congressional text and the Indiana text have sprung from the same seed. They have the same source and the same purposes. In our judgment, the two texts must be read together. The two documents are not formally equivalent, but they do address the same subject matter in virtually the same words, and their interpretations can be harmonized. The meaning of the former can lead to an understanding of the latter."

I believe that this letter, together with a similar one to Senator Hershman, which proponents also introduced into the House committee record, clearly links the FMA and SJR7.

The latter document, from the Marriage Law Foundation in Utah, dated March 20, 2007, states:

"The language of the Indiana amendment is patterned after an early draft of the Federal Marriage Amendment. Like the federal amendment, it is drafted narrowly and does not limit the legislature from extending the legal incidents of marriage to unmarried persons, either as individual benefits or as complete “civil unions” type package."

In light of those statements, used as part of your colleague's own arguments to the legislature, how can you say they haven't linked the two?

[Don Sherfick]

Micah: I was wondering why you were making reference to Chief Justice John Roberts and what he may have said about the FMA, because until now I wasn't aware that he had ever commmented on it. I'd be interested if you could tell me what he had to say. But in going back I see that I inadvertently left out the last name "Bork", when I referred to that principal author of the FMA, who later made his recanting "poorly drafted" statement about his own handiwork that led to important changes in the FMA which for reasons only you and yours appear to know, were not reflected in SJR7. Nobody on your side has ever addressed Bork's statement, and why he chose to recommend scrapping the entire reference to statutory law "both state and federal", while keeping references to constitutions. There might have been a very logical explanaion, but again, despite the fact that he had been quoted, your folks wouldn't touch it. And that leads to a justifiable suspicion that the reason your folks didn't meet it head on was that they knew the Pandora's Box it would open for you.

I suspect that the thing that has your ire raised over my comment and suggestions that your folks, if not consspiratorial, were at the very least less than candid with legislators, the media, and the Hoosier public generally about where SJR7 came from is that you've lost your monopoly on claimed legal scholarship. You all had a nice thing going for you in 2005, when, frankly, the scholarship on opponents' side had yet to be mobilized, and you could say with impunity that your "legal experts" had gone through SJR7 with a fine tooth comb, and found it without any semebelence of contradiction or ambiguity. Then in late 2006 and 2007, when some further research led to more in depth questioning of the language of SJR7, and its relationship (that you now deny) to the FMA, things began to unravel for you. There was another side to the legal equation. You no longer had a sole claim on legal scholarship and you didn't much care for it. But having dug in, and perhaps been taken in by your own words, you were stuck with what you had, November 2008 was looming, and you couldn't change one word of the text because you then would have to start all over again. And of course now that has happened.

Now you've tried to pin your own intrangizance on the Democrats, and now have resorted to your usual mode of simply blaming everything on "homosexual activists". Nice try, but it won't work, and the fact that materials now being put out by Republican candidates for the legislature not daring breathe a word about SJR7 as something they supported reinforces the fact that you missed the train when you could have hitched a ride.

[Chris Douglas]

(Tell the truth, Micah... I'll bet Indiana Equality's lobbyist, Mark St. John, has been egging you on in an effort to secure his lifetime employment. If I were you, I'd ask for a cut!)

[Micah Clark]

Don,

I don't have the time for all the mistakes in your posts regarding a federal proposal that died years ago and things you think you know about our side that simply aren't true, and you were never a part of.

BTW, you were the one who brought up John Roberts. .. and now you'r quoting Robert Bork. I bet you think he's on my and Brant Hershman's speed dial don't you?

That "link" (as opposed to your claim of "great lengths") from Catholic University is made years later. You and others claimed collusion between the the congressional authors and us from the beginning as an intentional strategy between Rep. Musgrave and us from day one, and that's ludicrous.

I think the letter from the Catholic Conference was addressing a specific allegation about SJR 7 raised in 07. . . five years after its introduction and passage several times. . . and two years after the death of FMA. A letter from Catholic University in Washington, DC talking about FMA is hardly surprising since that's their closest sphere of reference, but its not who we looked to for legal counsel. . . as I said, those were people involved in the state amendments, because as I have repeatedly said, SJR 7 is a state amendment.

I believe the comparison in the letter was brought up primarily because of allegations that SJR 7 was just like the Michigan and Ohio amendments (which it clearly was not). . . and the author pointed to its similarity to FMA in that it merely restricts judicial over-reaching. . . nothing more or less than that.

My ire is not raised as you say, it is simply frustrating for someone like you who knows nothing of the discussions about SJR 7 amongst its supporters, to make wild allegations about our motives, our conversations, our legal analysis and state research to which you know nothing about. . and then to smear us by saying we were dishonest with legislators.

Jim Bopp never mentioned Rep. Musgrave, but so what if he had? Legislators knew that this was not about FMA which died a long time ago. It was, and is, about the 27 states that have already passed amendments. . . FMA is largely irrelevant to the debate on SJR 7 (I know you don't believe that, because it doesn't fit your agenda.)

This is the reason I often hate blogs, and rarely post.. Its a medium in which anyone can say anything regardless of the truth.

Have a great weekend. I'm off to meet with more congressmen from far away western states to hear their opinion of our property tax reform and daylight savings time. . . maybe they have some new marching orders for me before the next session begins.

[Don Sherfick]

Micah:
At this point, frustrated by what appears to be a total fantasy on your part that there is no connection between SJR7 and the Federal Amendment (despite the clear parallels/identy in text) I don’t know what to say. You are a proponent of Intelligent Design, but now it appears that you cling to a theory that by total coincidence, terms in SJR7 such as “may not be construed to require”, “legal incidents of marriage”, and the like, sprang into independent existence, with their meaning having nothing to do with those terms in the Federal Marriage Amendment. Truly amazing.

As to my bringing up Justice John Roberts, please clean your glasses a bit. I did not bring him up. I explained to you that when I used the term “Judge Robert” above, I was referring to Judge Robert Bork, but had erroneously left the “Bork” out. Not that it makes any real difference to you, given that since you believe SJR7 and the FMA have no connection, his statement that what he helped write had been “poorly drafted” goes right over you head anyway.

I will leave it to VR's readers, and others who may pick up on this item and write separately, to judge whether or not what you say is true concerning the total lack of a link between the FMA and SJR7.

There are several problems with Micah's posts, aside from his resorting to name calling to mask his lack of cogent argument.

For one thing, supreme courts do not rule based on the whims of "a liberal judge". That makes good demagoguery, but has no shred of truth. Even in a close decision, the U.S. Supreme court would require five justices to concur, and I doubt that any state court would rely on fewer than three (in a three to two decision) and more likely four.

It seems that the "full faith and credit clause" bogey man, does not hold water, much as I wish it did. The U.S. Court has held that you cannot use that clause to require one state to accept another states law that goes against the first state's public policy. They do think that court judgments are binding, so the issue is somewhat complicated, but marriages in Massachusetts or California are not court judgments, so they probably do not threaten other states. To pretend that they do is intellectually dishonest.

As to the provenance question, Senator Brandt Hershman boasted in a forum at IUPUI (I can dig up the date, if you need it) that his amendment had been closely modeled on the FMA and "vetted" by the best minds in Washington. (My suspicion is that he was not referring to you nor to Representative Musgrave, but to Judge Robert Bork and his associates. That Don left off Bork's last name does not mean he said something that he never did.)

Since you obfuscate, what Don is trying to say is that SJR7 was copied (by the way, the "similarities" are not a credible "coincidence for anyone with a passing acquaintance of writer's styles and how language works: they are rather a smoking gun) from an early draft of the FMA but did not incorporate changes made when Bork and Musgrave were persuaded that the original was "poorly drafted". The Hershman team, either intended to keep the ambiguity--he said, on the same occasion, that SJR7 would clearly prevent full civil unions, and that the exact degree of similarity to present marriage of any putative civil union would be determined later (obviously by the courts)--or they were not aware of the problem until SJR7 had been passed by a legislature and an election had passed.

Rather than admit their error and fix the text, they chose to try to bull, and bully, their way through, ignoring or denying objections to their text, and lost. They have only themselves to blame, although their loss is clearly Indiana's gain.

The text of SJR7 is the text of the original FMA, mutatis mutandis, as legal draftspersons like to say. Even if Senator Hershman had not boasted that he got his text from the FMA, the provenance is obvious. Other states have, it is true, marriage amendments, some with similar intent and scope to SJR7. None that I am aware of, cerainly not Michigan nor Ohio, are textually the same as SJR7 and the FMA. SJR7 was a dog's breakfast, and anyone who would protect Indiana from "activist judges" should be grateful that it is gone.

[Don Sherfick]

In fairness to Micah, I would jump in and concur that Oklahama and perhaps a couple of other states, a small minority to be sure, have language almost identical to the FMA, one verson or another. It's very interesting to note that in those states the supporters were quick to tout the fact, as did Senator Hershman, that the FMA was the basic pattern. So maybe when Micah insists that he and his folks were only conference calling with attorneys from other states who were putting against STATE constitutional amendments, what he says has technical validity. While I can't imagine why the attorneys from Oklahoma, etc., didn't clue Micah in on where they got their material from I don't know, for as he says, I was not privy to those conversations.

[Ed Fox]

11:27 is me (Ed Fox). I sign on and it anonymises me.

[Don Sherfick]

Micah:
Looking at our discourse on my assertion that you and your colleagues have only yourselves to blame for SJR7’s demise, I continue to be astounded at your lack of logic and understanding of some obvious and fundamental matters.

Anyone old enough to read can quickly see that SJR7 was cut and pasted from an early version of the Federal Marriage amendment. You dismiss that partly by saying that the FMA is five years old and dead, as if its defeat in Congress has one whit of relevance to the obvious identity/similarity of its words and phrases. Moreover, it wasn’t old in 2004. It was changed in mid 2004, at the time you folks had first introduced it and were yelling at then Speaker Bauer. So please stop the diversion about the long passage of time between the two.

I have personally spent a considerable amount of time, beginning in 2003 when the national debate concerning the meaning of the FMA. Frankly my interest began well before I heard of or became involved with opposing SJR7 sometime in late 2006, little knowing then that it would become relevant to the matter we’re dealing with.

That discussion, including some lively ones in the conservative National Review, frequently talked about whether or not the phrase “construed to require” limited the FMA’s application to just judges, or also restricted lawmakers. It talked about the scope of “unmarried couples or groups”. It expressed varying concerns over the precise meaning of “legal incidents of marriage”. If you read that conversation and closed your eyes you could easily think you were in the Indiana Statehouse listening to opposing sides testifying with respect to the meaning of SJR7.

Now you say that comparing a federal amendment basically the same terms and a state amendment is one of “apples and oranges”. But you have totally failed to produce even one whit of an example of how that applies here. How does the operation of “construed to require”, or the meaning of “legal incidents of marriage”, or “unmarried couples or groups” differ in the federal sphere versus the Indiana sphere? The answer is that your own legal sources have cited the FMA in support of the proposition that there are none.
You dismiss the letter from the Catholic University law folks by saying it was “hardly surprising since that's their closest sphere of reference, but its not who we looked to for legal counsel.” That is simply not true.

About the same time it had been introduced by your folks into the House Rules and Legislative Policy Committee in March 2007, Senator Hershman set the Catholic University letter to a large number of editorial boards of Indiana newspapers. His cover letter refers to its authors as “nonpartisan legal experts”. Are you saying there was a disconnect between some of your legal counsel and them? (I might suggest that perhaps your legal left hand didn’t know what you legal right hand was doing, but then I know that suggesting the presence of a left hand would be beyond uncivil.)

In addition to what I’ve quoted from the letter earlier, at the beginning it said: “The sponsors of the Indiana amendment presumably followed the Federal pattern because they intended to imitate the purposes and effects of that amendment.” Any doubt concerning the term “presumably” was erased when Senator Hershman endorsed its contents by making it public as part of your team’s arguments.
So you’re stuck with that. I know how important it is for you to try and distance yourself from it now, because if you can’t distance the FMA from SJR7 you are mired in the baggage of all the controversial issues that you and yours said didn’t exist.

Prior to March 2007, when I first raised the FMA/SJR7 linkage and your suppression of it in a letter to all members of the Indiana House of Representatives, your forces could have easily mounted a response along the lines you have outlined. Frankly, as proponent’s presentation began before the House committee in that month, I fully anticipated having to deal with that when I led off the opposition’s testimony. But there was dead silence on the matter from your side. And that silence continued. It has been quite obvious that you have been avoiding it, because you knew its significance.

Or maybe you really didn’t. And maybe that is the underlying problem. Maybe you took at face value what somebody from somewhere else handed you and said “use this”, and you didn’t bother to do your own due diligence as to where it came from.

Not a pretty proposition. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes, Micah. Not one bit.

[Ryan McCann]

Don,

I hope you have not been typing your novels in this string of comments with a straight face! :) Especially the following:

"I suspect that the thing that has your ire raised over my comment and suggestions that your folks, if not consspiratorial, were at the very least less than candid with legislators, the media, and the Hoosier public generally about where SJR7 came from is that you've lost your monopoly on claimed legal scholarship. You all had a nice thing going for you in 2005, when, frankly, the scholarship on opponents' side had yet to be mobilized, and you could say with impunity that your "legal experts" had gone through SJR7 with a fine tooth comb, and found it without any semebelence of contradiction or ambiguity. Then in late 2006 and 2007, when some further research led to more in depth questioning of the language of SJR7, and its relationship (that you now deny) to the FMA, things began to unravel for you. There was another side to the legal equation. You no longer had a sole claim on legal scholarship and you didn't much care for it."

Do you really think that the Marriage Amendment died because of the "legal experts" (a.k.a. crazy liberals...lol) you all brought in to fight the good fight this past session?

I think we both know that the Marriage Amendment died mostly because Pat Bauer was the Speaker of the House and partly because property tax reform was such a huge issue that it took precedence over everything else.

[Don Sherfick]

In a word, Ryan, Yes. Where did Micah go?

[Chris Douglas]

Actually, Ryan, on this one I think Don has it quite right.

Bauer would never have had the confidence to assist, nor would Pelath, were they not receiving communications from innumerable directions, both public and private, asking him to put the kibosh on the amendment because of a concern about its likely ramifications, both intended and "unintended". Those communications flowed readily from business and educational sectors in Indiana which would have been too frightened to speak their true minds were they not finding their positions quietly supported and sympathized with by no shortage of Republicans assuring them that no Republican Party backlash would occur against their interests as a result of their speaking up.

You guys were over-confident, got sloppy, over-played your hand and blew it. You lost the ability to intimidate the rest of the population into acquiescing to a campaign accurately understood as one of mere prejudice. Bauer isn't a cause of the amendment's defeat. He was just the last rock on the beach to which your tide barely reached, momentum expended, before it began to recede.

But don't be discouraged. Gays in Indiana can't get married, can still be fired for being gay, can still be chased from housing, can still be refused service in restaurants, can still be denied access to their stricken loved ones, can still be forced to pay a massive tax or forfeit their property accumulated jointly, and can still be terrorized with epithets etched on their cars as if a harmless prank rather than a dark message of hate. And some gay youths terrorized by their classmates and evicted from their families and churches will continue to self-destruct in suicide, hopefully in ever fewer numbers.

The only thing that has changed is that some have decided that they no longer wish to be associated with your intolerance, and that your intolerance must no longer be allowed to advance.

My belief (perhaps merely a hope) is that the days of passing anti-gay legislation have ended. A long, long fight to reverse the damage you have done has begun. I have no doubt that for some period of time, a long one, you will press and press and press unsuccessfully for measures to suppress the glbt population, but resist and resist and resist for some time successfully humanitarian relief for gays. Your defeat and our success is inevitable, but it will take decades.

What a wasted amount of energy for all of us, as was all the energy wasted fighting against and for equality for women and blacks. How much better all that energy would have been spent were it not necessarily deployed to overcome worthless prejudice and to secure the rights of those previously denied.

[Don Sherfick]

And I would add to Chris' comment that the imputs to Representative Pelath included a letter signed by 57 Hoosier law professors from three Indiana institutions supplying some very needed balance to what your legal folks claimed was a slam-dunk, no possible contrary position case for SJR7. That dogmatism on the part of your folks, and your refusal to make changes when they could have been made, helped sink your ship. And now Micah had thrown some of the folks from Catholic University who joined in and said things he wishes they hadn't off the bus.

[hoosier]

Homosexuality is perverse and icky. Perverts have brought the world slouching to immoral decay. Time to pass marriage amendment that supports only Man and Woman.

[Don Sherfick]

Your response to "hoosier" above, Veritas Rex?

[Micah Clark]

"Perverse" and "icky" are not not kind terms that help advance public debate or would be ones I would advise using.

"Risky", "physically dangerous", "emotionally harmful" and "spiritually destructive" would be much more accurate and appropriate.

Thankfully, for thousands of individuals, "changeable", "temporary" "former", "past" and "forgivable" are also applicable adjectives to the behavior.

[Red]

Micah,

Great response.