Hitting the reset button

Now that a marriage protection amendment is before the full Indiana House, leaders are counting votes. In spite of a huge GOP advantage, the vote appears to be a lot closer than is comfortable: 38 in favor, 38 opposed, 11 not saying, and 13 undecided.

The text of the amendment is:

Only a marriage between one (1) man and one (1) 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.

It is that second sentence that is the problem. It would ban civil unions (and all kinds of other mischief as Michigan discovered). And that becomes too uncomfortable for voters, likely the difference between rejection and approval.

So the House voted to amend the amendment. By a healthy margin they cut the second sentence.

The House has now passed the version without the second sentence.

That means if the Senate passes this version it cannot go before voters this November. The amendment process essentially starts over and the legislature would have to pass this text after the 2014 election to put it before voters in 2016. By then the mood in the country will have shifted more in our favor. Or the Supremes might make the vote irrelevant.

Strange that the leaders of the National Organization for Marriage aren't in Indiana urging lawmakers on. They're in Utah hosting rallies in a place where the debate is out of the legislature's hands.

It was Milo Smith, head of the House Elections Committee that got the amendment through committee and before the full chamber. His gay son Chris is not too happy with his father right now.