Veritas Rex

Iowa Decision Supports Case For Indiana Amendment

When traditional marriage supporters advocated for a state marriage amendment in 2008, Speaker Pat Bauer argued that such a constitutional amendment was unnecessary and redundant in light of Indiana’s existing state law.  Proponents of the amendment responded by saying that the same judicial reasoning that allowed courts in Massachusetts and elsewhere to challenge the constitutionality of marriage laws could be used by Indiana courts.  The Iowa Supreme Court’s decision to create a constitutional right to same-sex marriage and impose that new definition on the state proves the Speaker wrong, and marriage supporters right.

Unlike Massachusetts, a state known in recent decades for being highly “progressive” in both fiscal and social policy, Iowa is a mid-west state whose citizens have many of the same values that Hoosiers have.  One may have expected courts in states like California and Massachusetts to have activist judiciaries more than willing to redefine the definition of marriage.  But Iowa is not a state that would have been considered a prime candidate for this sort of judicial misrule.

Indiana legislators and policy makers should take close note of the Iowa decision and realize that what happened there could happen here.  Marriage is a fundamental institution in society and the state must act whenever necessary to protect its status and definition.  Without its presence as a bedrock unit in the makeup of society, our state cannot expect to move forward into a prosperous future.  The strength of our state, the well-being of our children, and the prosperity of our communities depend on our ability to protect marriage from those who would redefine it into something it has never been, and will never be able to successfully be.

Although this session of the General Assembly failed to act on a marriage amendment, with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Bray (R) being responsible for his committee’s failure to hear the matter in the Senate, the Iowa ruling will hopefully spur legislative leaders to action next session.

Federal DOMA Under Attack

The 9th Circuit recently ruled that the federal DOMA is unconstitutional. 

Though this decision will not immediately lead to States being forced to recognize same-sex marriages, it should be a warning to those who claim that Indiana does not need to spend time on a Marriage Amendment.  Once the federal DOMA (defense of marriage act) is ruled unconstitutional, it is only a matter of time before Indiana will be forced to recognize same-sex marriages, unless we amend our constitution.  It is clear by this ruling that there are judges out there who have a bent toward legislating the definition of marriage from the bench. 

RelationShip

Picture a lake.  The lake is beautiful…a wonderful place to spend one’s time.  Now picture a lot of boats on the lake.  Unfortunately, several of them, in some way or another, are not navigating properly and are sinking.  Some of the boats are sinking very slowly and won't be fully submerged for many years.  Some of the boats are sinking more quickly.  Some are already fully submerged on the bottom of the lake.

A large number of the boats that sank are lying submerged in the middle of the lake.  The reason is that dangerous rocks lie there and pierce the hulls of the ships that pass through.  Most people knew to avoid the rocks, whether through careful navigation or word of mouth.  The government decided to warn all passing ships of the rocks lying beneath the lake’s surface by placing buoys around the rocky area.  Most boats would observe the buoys, slow down, and use caution near the rocks.  Of course some boats ignored these signals to slow down and use caution, which caused them to crash.  In the 1960s, the government decided to remove the buoys and since then the number of wrecks has drastically increased.

New Marriage Amendment Unveiled

 

 

Indiana Representatives Turner and Cheatham introduced new language in the 2009 Indiana General Assembly to add to our state constitution the definition of marriage as only between one man and one woman.  The new language was developed after researching existing constitutional amendments in the now 30 states which have them.  It is the exact language of Kentucky and Wisconsin:

 

Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Indiana.  A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized. 

 

With 30 states having constitutional amendments, 64% of the United States population is under the definition of marriage as one man and one woman.  California, Arizona, and Florida became the most recent states to adopt constitutional amendments on marriage when their voters supported ballot questions in the November, 2008 election.  Although Indiana is among 10 other states with state laws defining marriage, our state is at risk because at least two states have already recognized gay marriages (including Hoosiers who traveled there to marry).  Also, judges in other states have attempted to invalidate state laws already on the books.

January 12th Tony Perkins speaking at IFI dinner

 

Marriage Amendment in 09

The Indianapolis Star reported today:  "Though the number of states adopting bans on same-sex marriage grows, the odds appear slim that Indiana lawmakers will give serious consideration to such a constitutional amendment next year." 

The article mentions that Republican State Senators are pushing for the IN House (controlled by Democrats) to pass the Marriage Amendment first this time, since they have taken the lead in passing it all three times in the past.   However, we heard the same rhetoric last year.  Senate Republicans are sick of Pat Bauer and the House Democrats killing the Marriage Amendment each session, so they want to put pressure on the House to go first.  However, last year they realized that Speaker Bauer will not allow a floor vote (though he has promised one in the past), so they went ahead and easily passed the Marriage Amendment out of the Senate with little opposition.  There is no reason for them not to do the same this year.  

 

Welcome to the Brave New World of "Gay Marriage"

Activists on the "gay marriage" warpath have made lots of news lately.  Here are 3 particularly interesting happenings:

1) "Gay Marriage" won't affect you.  Oh really?  I think the vast majority of Hoosiers would disagree if they new that "gay marriage" might lead to their 1st graders taking a "field trip" to city hall to take part in a lesbian "wedding."  Check out the video below.

2) Two Indiana men got "married" in California over the weekend.  I wonder what happens when they come back to Indiana and sue to have their brand new "marriage license" recognized?  Indiana House Democrats Pat Bauer, Scott Pelath, Terri Austin, Russ Stillwell, etc. have made it clear over the last two years that we should stick our heads in the sand and ignore this problem.  Meanwhile, judges will eventually do the dirty work for these elected representatives when couples come back to Indiana and challenge our marriage laws.

3) Connecticut's Supreme Court forced gay marriage on that state, joining the Supreme Court of Massachusetts and California.  This case blows up the equal rights argument that activists have claimed here in Indiana.  "Civil unions" were already recognized in Connecticut, but were not good enough for activists there, even though citizens who identified themselves as homosexual in that state already had the legal benefits previously only enjoyed by husbands and wives.  This proves once again that "legal equality" is not the true goal of these activists.  Rather, they wish to change culture with the help of government by changing the definition of marriage and forcing that belief down the throats of citizens.  They will not be happy until everyone embraces their twisted view of sexuality and all opposing views are silenced, especially those of the Church. 

   

Point/Counterpoint On Michigan...

Don Sherfick at Bilerico has thrown down the gauntlet (at least to Micah Clark) with a post entitled Paging Micah Clark:  Your Silence on the Michigan Domestic Benefits Decision is Deafening.  I would quote Sherfick's post in its entirety, but Bilerico generally frowns on copyright infringement.

I may have missed something in the blogs or in the media, but so far I haven't run across anything from the office of Micah Clark, head of the Indiana chapter of the American Family Association, heralding the fairly recent decision of the Michigan Supreme Court to wipe out same-sex domestic partnership benefits at state institutions because of its "Marriage Protection" constitutional amendment. Not a peep so far from Curt Smith at the Indiana Family Institute's website, and Eric Miller of Advance America also seems missing in action on this one.

Could it have something to do with the fact that the American Family Association in Michigan, as well as other organizational first cousins of similar groups here, have again been caught pretty red-handed in "bait and switch" tactics? They say one thing to get the legislature and public to go along with an amendment, and then once it's on the books they go into court with flip-flopping that makes Mitt Romney look like the Rock of Gibraltar.

Gary Glenn, of the American Family Association of Michigan, responds.

Don, you'd have those guys in Michigan dead to rights...

If only what you report were true.

But it's not.

The campaign committee that opposed Michigan's Marriage Protection Amendment actually praised the American Family Association of Michigan for openly acknowledging -- before the 2004 election -- exactly how the amendment would impact public employee benefits.

June 2004 news release: "The Coalition for a Fair Michigan said today that they were happy to find common ground with the Michigan affiliate of the American Family Association, one of the lead proponents of the proposed constitutional amendment that would ban legal recognition of any relationships other than opposite-sex marriage. Last night, at a forum on the amendment...both sides agreed that the amendment would go much further than defining marriage by also eliminating any government-sanctioned domestic partnership benefits. 'I’m glad we could find common ground with the AFA, and I want to thank Gary Glenn for his willingness to be upfront on this point,' said Wendy Howell, Campaign Manager for CFM."

http://web.archive.org/web/20040920142248/www.c...

And AFA-Michigan explained the amendment's impact in great detail in a Sept. 28, 2004 news release, five weeks before the election at which the amendment was overwhelmingly approved by voters.

Quoting from that AFA-Michigan news release:

---

Glenn said amendment opponents falsely claim it will prevent public employers from offering employee benefits to some employees, a charge routinely parroted by newspaper editorials and media commentators.

"Only problem is, it's false," Glenn said.

The amendment doesn't apply at all to private sector employers, he said, and under federal contract and labor law, voter approval of Proposal 2 will have no effect whatsoever on public employee benefits included in existing collective bargaining agreements. Plus, the amendment will not stop any employer in the future from offering benefits to anyone the employer chooses, he said, so long as it's not on the basis of formally recognizing homosexual relationships as equal or similar to marriage.

He noted three alternative benefits policies under which all individuals currently receiving public employee benefits could continue to do so after enactment of Proposal 2, each of which he said disproves amendment opponents' charges as false:

* A government employer could adopt an "anything goes" policy, allowing employees to add anyone they wish to their health care coverage -- a sick relative, a neighbor, or even their homosexual partner -- so long as the offer is available to all employees and not only to those involved in a homosexual relationship.

"Which begs the question, if a government employee isn't allowed to put her sick grandmother on her health insurance plan, why should employees involved in a homosexual relationship be singled out for special treatment as if they're equal or similar to marriage, when everyone knows as a matter of common sense they're not?" Glenn said.

* A government employer could simply provide that all children in an employee's household are eligible for employee benefits such as health insurance, regardless of their relationship to the employee.

* The simplest and most obvious alternative, Glenn said, would be for a government employer to adopt a policy which states that any individual eligible for benefits as of Nov. 1, 2004 will remain eligible for benefits perpetually thereafter. "Under that policy," Glenn said, "every single person currently receiving any kind of benefit would continue to do so, but it would not be on the basis of a government employer singling out homosexual relationships for the special treatment of being recognized as equal or similar to marriage."

(END of news release quote)

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And now, three and a half years after that election, not only the Michigan Supreme Court and the news media, but even the ACLU and other opponents of the amendment, have admitted that how AFA-MI described the amendment's effects back in 2004 have been right all along.

Michigan's Supreme Court this month simply upheld an earlier Court of Appeals decision under which the unmarried "partners" of government employees have and will continue to receive benefits under broader eligibility criteria adopted in order to comply with Michigan's Marriage Protection Amendment.

The irony, especially in light of false characterizations such as yours, Don, is that under the broader criteria, more Michigan citizens -- not fewer -- are now eligible for coverage under government employees' health care plans.

Here's the truth, which you didn't report:

WASHINGTON BLADE ("gay" newspaper in D.C.): "Despite the ruling, state employers and major universities in the state are still claiming the right to provide benefits to the partners of ("gay") employees by instead extending coverage to adult dependents in employees households. Sean Kosofsky, director of policy for the Triangle Foundation, a Michigan gay advocacy group, said a number of employers redrew policies to offer benefits while complying with court decisions. 'We are hoping that all public employers that want to offer these benefits will do the same, including new employers,' he said."

http://www.washingtonblade.com/2008/5-16/news/n...

DETROIT FREE PRESS: "The practical effect of the Michigan Supreme Court ruling on the marriage amendment's effect on same-sex benefits may be next to nothing... The silver lining, if there is one, is that public employers who provided same-sex health benefits have so far found a way around the amendment's strictures by offering benefits MORE WIDELY than just to same-sex or heterosexual couples; the University of Michigan, for example, now offers employees the chance to extend benefits to any nonrelated designee."

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=...

MICHIGAN INDEPENDENT (University of Michigan): "The decision should not affect the University's employee health care coverage. After the 2007 Court of Appeals decision, the University no longer offers benefits on the basis of same-sex domestic partner relationships; but had changed their policies so that employees' partners would REMAIN COVERED."

http://www.michiganindependent.com/2008/05/08/m...

LANSING STATE JOURNAL: The "ruling Wednesday by Michigan's high court about same-sex benefits is likely to have little local effect. That's because months ago, many Lansing officials began rewording their domestic partner benefits packages."

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dl...

ANN ARBOR NEWS: "When a Michigan Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday upheld a ban on governments and universities extending benefits to the gay partners of employees, the University of Michigan and city of Ann Arbor were already prepared. U-M and the city had previously altered their policies by taking out any mention of 'same-sex.' That revision should allow them to CONTINUE EXTENDING BENEFITS within the law, said officials with the ACLU, city of Ann Arbor and U-M. ...ACLU of Michigan Executive Director Kary Moss said her organization will work with municipalities on their policy language so it adheres with Wednesday's ruling and STILL OFFERS BENEFITS to unmarried couples."

http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/05/rul...

ASSOCIATED PRESS: "Gay rights advocates...are confident that public-sector employers have successfully rewritten or will revise their benefit plans so same-sex partners can KEEP GETTING HEALTH CARE."

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/...

DETROIT FREE PRESS: "There is likely to be no immediate impact from the ruling because public employers in Michigan who had offered such benefits already had changed their policies to ensure their employees' partners WOULD REMAIN COVERED. ...Dozens of public employees' partners most likely will be able to continue to be eligible for health care under benefit changes that allow unmarried employees to cover a designated beneficiary."

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=...

Attorney Jay Kaplan of the Michigan ACLU, chief counsel for the homosexual plaintiffs in the case at issue, as reported by Lansing City Pulse: "'The Michigan Court of Appeals decision never said that public employers could not provide health care coverage to domestic partners of employees,' Kaplan wrote in an e-mail. He said that employers CAN PROVIDE HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE FOR DOMESTIC PARTNERS as long as they do not specifically recognize the domestic partner relationship by filing domestic partner benefit forms, for example when determining criteria for insurance eligibility."

http://www.lansingcitypulse.com/index.php?optio...

Between the Lines, a homosexual activist newsweekly in Detroit, reported: "(ACLU-Michigan lawyer Jay) Kaplan says that even under the Appeals Court ruling, benefits CAN BE OFFERED, but they have to be done in a way which does not recognize same-sex partners or relationships."

http://www.pridesource.com/article.shtml?articl...

Kalamazoo Alliance for Equality, a homosexual activist group, said in a news release: "The Michigan Court of Appeals did not say that health insurance coverage for domestic partners is illegal. The court said that public employers cannot use criteria that recognizes the domestic partner relationship."

http://www.tri.org/docs/Kzoodprallies.doc

ProtectMIFamilies.com, a joint website by the ACLU and the homosexual activist Triangle Foundation: "Question: Have any employers ended their benefits for domestic partners in respond to the Michigan Court of Appeals decision? Answer: So far to the best of our knowledge, no public employer has terminated health insurance coverage for domestic partners of employees. It should be noted that as flawed as the Court of Appeals decision is, it did not say that domestic partners could not receive health insurance coverage. The Court held that a same-sex relationship could not be recognized for eligibility purposes for health insurance coverage. However, employers can use other criteria where the same-sex relationship is not recognized for health insurance coverage. We have been working with public employers, whose contracts may be ending to develop alternative criteria as a way to ENSURE CONTINUED COVERAGE, while our case is on appeal."

http://protectmifamilies.org/teir.php?page=5#5

Bottom line, Don: no one in Michigan has lost any benefit, as AFA-Michigan truthfully said before, during, and after the Nov 2004 election, including in the Ann Arbor News story you quoted.

Which means, obviously, that Micah Clark of AFA-Indiana has been telling the truth, too.

                        

A Gathering Storm That May Ultimately Reach Indiana

The issue of marriage protection and preserving the importance of mothers and fathers in marriage is coming to a boil again this summer.    Next month, California clerks will begin handing out marriage licenses to homosexual couples following a court ruling that ignored state law and a popular voter-approved referendum defining marriage as only between one man and one woman.  As of today in just the San Francisco area 623 homosexual couples have booked appointments to get a marriage license. 
   
Unlike Massachusetts, California does not have a residency requirement which could place many state's statutes at risk should couples return to their home state and demand recognition of their California marriage. Some homosexual activists are already blogging about ways to nullify state and federal DOMA laws using California marriages.

The Liberty Counsel has also pointed out in a new court filing that California's courts have also swung the door wide open to polygamy, the unavoidable next step in the systematic dismantling of marriage.

Apparently, the Governor of New York couldn't wait for such a challenge. Gov. David Paterson (D) has already ordered all state agencies to revise their policies and regulations to legally recognize California and any other state or country's homosexual marriages.
   
The revisions are estimated to involve at least 1,300 incidents of marriage in state policies including everything from the joint filing of tax forms to the transferring of fishing licenses between spouses.  This is an issue that really should be decided by voters. It is clear that the Governor is trying to circumvent and undermine NY state law, which does not recognize same-sex marriage.  Under his liberal scheme, New York will be the only state that recognizes same-sex marriages from other places, but does not legally allow them.
   
As the storm gathers, the question remains as to what might happen in Indiana since the Democrat House leadership killed the marriage protection amendment. This makes it impossible to significantly protect our marriage laws until 2012 from any potential lawsuits created by the California or New York messes.

Traditional marriage dealt a blow today in California

In a blow to traditional marriage, California's gay marriage ban has been overturned today by the state's top court.

So for all of you out there who still buy the argument that a Marriage Amendment in Indiana is redundant, there is no more room to hide.  Also note the quote at the end of the article (emphasis added).  Apparently, activists in California fully intend to use this decision to force other states to recognize gay marriages.

We told you so.  But this is one time I wish we would have been wrong.

But alas, some folks like Pat Bauer and Terri Austin will still try to make the case that our docile gay marriage proponents in Indiana would never think of trying (again) to overturn our laws.  Pat Bauer may trust them, but I don't.   This strategy is sure to be used in Indiana (again) to attempt to overturn our law through the only means available to gay marriage supporters- the courts.  Because we are without a marriage amendment, we may soon be hostage to the same court system that banned the word "Jesus" from the Statehouse.

California's Top Court Overturns Gay Marriage Ban
SAN FRANCISCO - In a monumental victory for the gay rights movement, the California Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage Thursday in a ruling that would allow same-sex couples in the nation's biggest state to tie the knot.

Domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage, the justices ruled 4-3 in an opinion written by Chief Justice Ron George.

Outside the courthouse, gay marriage supporters cried and cheered as news spread of the decision.

"Our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation," the court wrote.

The city of San Francisco, two dozen gay and lesbian couples and gay rights groups sued in March 2004 after the court halted San Francisco's monthlong same-sex wedding march.

"Today the California Supreme Court took a giant leap to ensure that everybody — not just in the state of California, but throughout the country — will have equal treatment under the law," said City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who argued the case for San Francisco. (emphasis mine).