House Works to Advance Marriage Amendment
House Republicans aren’t giving up on their attempt to pass a Constitutional amendment protecting marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Contrary to some statements made by opponents of the amendment, the measure is not some new type of discrimination. Indiana law currently prohibits same-sex unions and a Constitutional amendment is needed simply to prevent judges from writing their personal philisophical beliefs into law. Further, discrimination isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, our laws constantly discriminate between individuals who follow the law and individuals who break the law.
But back to the news item. Assistant House Minority Leader Eric Turner yesterday submitted an amendment to HJR-1, the proposed Constitutional Amendment capping property taxes, inserting the language of SJR 7 into the legislation.
Good job Leader Bosma, Assistant Leader Turner, and House Republican caucus on working hard to pass this needed legislation.
For those of you still unconvinced that Indiana should pass a Constitutional amendment even if we don’t have a case dealing with same-sex marriage sitting the docket, I would suggest that you read this article. Iowa isn’t a bastion of liberalism.
January 29th, 2008 at 10:54 am
“Iowa isn’t a bastion of liberalism.”
Not the state as a whole but it has some very liberal pockets. Johnson County is one (home of University of Iowa), Ames (Iowa State) is another. Isn’t it amazing how these college towns, many employing left-wing extremist professors who are nothing more than former professional students who used college to dodge the Vietnam War. Of course there’s working-class [read: Union] cities like Davenport and Des Moines.
More to your question - Its a matter of time before some Democrat judge in Monroe County rules on Indiana’s version of “Defense of Marriage”.
January 29th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
This little gambit confirms Fall 2007 predictions that IFI and friends would attempt to attach the attack on gays to the property tax amendment. Not only is the attack on gays a worthless exercise in itself, the effect of which will have no positive consequence for marriage, but a negative impact on fellow citizens, now the strategy is to drag down a serious piece of governance in its wake.
We already know what’s coming…. a campaign by the right wing to pin on the Democrats and on gays a needless defeat of the property tax amendment.
This tactic stands to alienate both those who feel some sense of responsibility for the well-being of their gay siblings, friends, neighbors and colleagues, and the business community, which would prefer to see a focus on things that have a positive practical impact.
So long as these kinds of tactics are publicly associated with the Republican Party, in my opinion, business and youth will continue to move in disgust to independence and to support of the Democrats. It is essential to the future of the Republican Party that Republicans who feel queasy about the right wing’s games begin publicly to air their thoughts, for the alternative is the decline of the Republican Party.
It becomes ever more difficult for youthful professionals to identify with the Party.
Does everyone who reads this blog, everyone who writes for this blog, feel good about what the IFI and its cohorts are up to?