Senate passes marriage amendment; resolution now goes to House

By Brigid Curtis Ayer

Two days before Valentine’s Day, Indiana’s state senators cast their votes either in support of or against protecting the sanctity of marriage through a constitutional amendment.

Senate Joint Resolution 7, the marriage amendment, which passed the Senate 39-10, would amend Indiana’s Constitution to define that marriage consists only of the union of one man and one woman. In effect, the marriage amendment would ban same-sex marriages in Indiana.

Sen. Brandt Hershman

(R-Wheatfield), author of the resolution, said, “The institution of marriage has been a foundational building block of our society for centuries, but it is under assault from radical groups and activist judges. Senate Joint Resolution 7 will provide a great deal of protection on marriage—an issue which has always been a province in state law.

“The state has always regulated marriage based on age, family relation and number of persons,” he said. “The idea that there is a fundamental civil right to marriage as some opponents of Senate Joint Resolution 7 claim is simply not true. Senate Joint Resolution 7 also puts the question where it belongs—in the hands of voters rather than activist judges.”

Sen. Richard Young (D-Milltown) said he supports the resolution because “I believe that marriage is between a man and woman.”

Sen. Young said some of the opposition to the bill comes from a concern that employers would not be able to extend benefits to domestic partners, but the senator said that the resolution doesn’t affect what benefits businesses in Indiana decide to offer to employees.

When asked if he thought the measure would pass the House, Sen. Young replied, “Yes, I think the measure will pass the House,” but added, “It’s possible the House will amend it, causing the whole process on the constitutional amendment to start over again.”

If the Indiana General Assembly passes Senate Joint Resolution 7 without an amendment, it will go to the ballot and Hoosier voters will make the final determination if the constitution is amended.

“On an issue of this magnitude, I think the citizens of Indiana need to hear the debate and then decide for themselves when they get to the ballot box,” Sen. Young said.

Sen. John Broden (D-South Bend), who voted against the measure, said, “I absolutely agree that a marriage should be between one man and one woman, which Senate Joint Resolution 7 states in subsection ‘a.’ However, my problem is with subsection ‘b’ of the resolution. We heard testimony from very respectable legal scholars who gave divergent testimony as to what subsection ‘b’ means.”

Subsection “b” of the resolution states, “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 couples or groups.”

The concern that Sen. Broden and others have with subsection “b” is that public actors such as Indiana University or Purdue University could be banned from providing benefits to domestic partners, which could be interpreted as unmarried same-sex couples or unmarried heterosexual couples, some of whom have children.

Sen. Broden said that an appellate court in Michigan, which has a similar constitutional amendment protecting marriage, recently ruled in exactly this way.

“I don’t think we want to pass a constitutional amendment which bans benefits,” Sen. Broden said, “especially when we are unclear how and what benefits would be banned.”

Currently, Indiana law allows marriage between only one man and one woman. When the law was challenged in the case of Morrison vs. Sadler, the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the state law and upheld Indiana’s definition of marriage between one woman and one man.

Glenn Tebbe, Indiana Catholic Conference executive director, who testified before a Senate panel in support of Senate Joint Resolution 7, said, “Even though the Indiana Court of Appeals has affirmed current law, the debate and effort to redefine marriage continues in our nation and state. Senate Joint Resolution 7 will strengthen Indiana’s law to defend and protect the definition of marriage, and the Church supports that.”

In a 2003 document published by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on “Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons,” it concluded, “The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.

“The common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society,” the document said. “Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behavior, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity.

“The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself.”

Nationwide, 27 states have passed constitutional amendments defining marriage.

Senate Joint Resolution 7 now goes to the House for passage. It must pass the House in exactly the same form for the amendment to be eligible for a vote by Hoosiers in the 2008 election.

If passed by a majority of voters, the amendment would become part of the Indiana Constitution.

(Brigid Curtis Ayer is a correspondent for The Criterion.) †