By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com
INDIANAPOLIS – A short time after the Indiana Senate opted to delay putting a controversial proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on the ballot for at least two years, President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne, said
John Krull, publisher, TheStatehouseFile.com
something disturbing.
Reporters asked Long whether a federal court decision the day before that struck down a key piece of Kentucky’s constitutional ban on gay marriage had affected the Senate’s decision. The language in Kentucky’s constitution was virtually identical to Indiana’s proposed amendment.
“I am convinced that it does not make a difference. In the end, the United States Supreme Court will make the decision on whether or not it’s a state-by-state determination or whether the 14thamendment will rule and that all marriage is the same,†Long said.
If that’s the case, then the question is: Why?
If the issue of gay marriage ultimately is going to be decided by the Supreme Court, then why did the leaders of this state – including Long – push Indiana through this protracted and increasingly ugly battle?
Why did Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, sow seeds of mistrust with his sleight-of-hand reassignment of House Joint Resolution 3 from one committee to another just so he could get it to the floor? Why did Elections Committee Chairman Milo Smith, R-Columbus, kick a 20-year U.S. Air Force veteran out of a committee meeting for making a silent gesture of disapproval?
Why did Long, Bosma and Gov. Mike Pence keep Hoosiers at each others’ throats for weeks?
If Long is right and the only votes that truly count on this issue are the nine that sit on the nation’s highest court, why did the people of Indiana have go to war with each other?
I ask the question not just for the many, many gay and lesbian Hoosiers who, even though they won a significant victory by delaying HJR 3’s implementation, still feel as though their rights as citizens and their dignity as human beings are under constant assault.
I also ask it on behalf of the social conservatives who came away from this bruising process feeling as though they had lost something precious.
I won’t pretend that I think the social conservatives’ cause is just – because it isn’t – but I know that their concern is genuine. The best of their leadership – Curt Smith of the Indiana Family Institute, for example – sincerely sees this not as an assault on gay Hoosiers but as a defense of an essential building block in the foundation of a healthy and just social order.
Conservatives such as Smith don’t like gay marriage, but they also don’t like seeing high divorce rates, large numbers of children being born out of wedlock and what they perceive as a social order under assault. They feel embattled and under siege, as if all they held dear were being torn away from them.
And if Bosma, Long and Pence had wanted to devise a process that would make social conservatives feel even more embattled, embittered and under siege, they couldn’t have found a better process than the one through which our leaders just pushed Hoosiers.
At moments of conflict such as these, skilled leaders remind citizens of the things that unite us and assure us that, regardless of the outcome, we will remain one country, one state, one community, one family.
Indiana’s leaders didn’t do that.
Instead of calming the waters, Long, Bosma and Pence roiled them. Instead of mollifying fears, at every turn they exacerbated tensions. Instead of counseling peace, at every opportunity they escalated the conflict.
They left both winners and losers in this Indiana family feud feeling bruised, battered and resentful.
And, in the end, perhaps without meaning to, Long acknowledged that Indiana’s leaders did what they did for no good reason. The final decision about gay marriage wasn’t, isn’t and won’t be in Hoosiers’ hands.
That’s just pitiful.
At a time when Hoosiers most needed leadership, Indiana’s leaders did everything but lead.
John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism, host of “No Limits†WFYI 90.1 Indianapolis and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.
“Why did Elections Committee Chairman Milo Smith, R-Columbus, kick a 20-year U.S. Air Force veteran out of a committee meeting for making a silent gesture of disapproval?”
Because opponents were causing distractions and when the chairman had called for order in the meeting and the veteran defied the call.
You’re a hack Krull, not a journalist and that comment is indicative of the misinformation you spread.
And that gets an “Amen”.
John Krull, Dan Carpenter: is this the Star or the C&P?
Gay marriage bans have passed in 30 states. California voters passed a constitutional referendum recently. Yes, the Supreme Court will probably weigh in on this, but that does not mean Indiana cannot have the same debate the rest of the nation has.
Besides, what’s the problem with our legislators debating an important topic? Isn’t that what democracy is all about? If debate is a “distraction” then lets just install King Obama and be done with it.
‘Why did Long, Bosma and Gov. Mike Pence keep Hoosiers at each others’ throats for weeks?’ …
… ‘Instead of calming the waters, Long, Bosma and Pence roiled them. Instead of mollifying fears, at every turn they exacerbated tensions. Instead of counseling peace, at every opportunity they escalated the conflict.’
~~~ Krull the Wise
Deadenders out in force. More of the drip, drip, drip that picks the scab of their their foul intolerance every day. State after state waking up while Indiana buries its cornfed head ever deeper in the limestone. Politicians like Pence scurry around trying to extract every last bit of benefit from this invented issue before it goes away. It’s on the fast track to vaporization and the Funsters in Indy are speeding it along, kicking and screaming.
The Pence mob will continue the paleolithic appeal to their acolyte’s worst nature. Exhorting them to sign on to the warped view of social issues that has worked so well for them. Fortunately it has now exposed them for what they are. It couldn’t be any plainer if they had a big red B tattooed on their little forehaids.
Krull should change the name to “The Statehouse Pile”
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