By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com
John Krull, publisher, TheStatehouseFile.com
INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana House Minority Leader Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, described the upcoming battle in the state over same-sex marriage with one word.
Pelath called it a “distraction.†He said Indiana’s leaders need to be focused on creating jobs for Hoosiers.
Indiana Sen. Jim Merritt, R-Indianapolis, was more cautious. While noting that he voted in favor of the proposed state constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex unions, Merritt wouldn’t commit himself to voting for the measure again. He said he was “listening†to his constituents on the issue.
Merritt and Pelath were talking as guests on the radio show I host. Their remarks illustrated how tricky the dynamics on the issue have become.
Nearly a decade ago, Hoosier Republicans (with the support of many Democrats) could proclaim enshrining a ban into the Indiana constitution their top priority. They already had a ban in place in state law, but they wanted to nail the door shut.
It seemed at the time to be a safe political move – at least on the surface. Even then, though, there were signs that a change was going to come.
In those days, I was the executive director of what was then the Indiana Civil Liberties Union – now the ACLU of Indiana, which opposed bans on same-sex unions. In that position, I saw both polling and focus-group studies that showed that the support for a ban was strongest among social conservatives who were middle-aged or older and that opposition to the ban was likely to grow over time.
And that opposition has grown. The most recent poll showed that almost twice as many Hoosiers now oppose putting the ban in the constitution as support it. That poll found that 64 percent of the state’s voters think a constitutional ban would be bad while 34 percent liked the idea. The numbers narrowed, though, when those polled were asked how they’d vote – with 46 percent saying they’d vote against a ban if it were on the ballot and 43 percent saying they would vote for it.
For it to get on the ballot, legislators will have to take the measure up again. The process for amending the Indiana constitution is protracted. It requires the legislature to approve and the governor to approve the measure twice, with an election between the two approvals. Only after the second affirmation by the legislature can the proposed amendment go before the voters.
And, if the legislature doesn’t reaffirm the proposed amendment before yet another election takes place, then the measure dies and the clock starts over.
That means that Indiana lawmakers have to deal with same-sex marriage during this upcoming session, one way or the other.
Lawmakers will have to make that decision under intense spotlights because Indiana likely will be a battleground state on the issue. After a long string of states voted in favor of bans, the states where such measures were the on the ballot most recently have rejected them.
And the U.S. Supreme Court since has struck down the federal same-sex marriage ban, saying that, among other things, it violated the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
If the measure does go onto the ballot this fall, Hoosiers can expect to see presidential campaign year level spending on the issue from both sides of the debate. I know sales people at Indiana radio and TV stations who are salivating at the thought of the advertising revenue that a same-sex marriage fight could generate next year.
That doesn’t end the list of pressures and complications. Republicans, in particular, are under the gun for two reasons.
The first is that two of their major constituencies – the business community and social conservatives – are at odds on the issue. A long list of major employers in the state has come out against the ban while social conservatives have made getting the ban into the constitution their top priority. Either way Republicans go, they’ll alienate some of their friends.
There’s also no way for them to duck the issue. With super majorities in both the House and Senate, Republicans will be the ones held accountable for whatever happens on the issue.
Perhaps that’s why Pelath seemed to enjoy, for the moment, being in the minority.
When I asked the Democratic leader if he took some pleasure in seeing his Republican opponents on the verge of having a huge family quarrel, Pelath said no – but he was laughing when he said it.
Merritt wasn’t laughing.
He said the same-sex marriage issue was going to be “tough.â€
Merritt’s got a gift for understatement.
John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism, host of “No Limits†WFYI 90.1 FM Indianapolis and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.
