Indiana General Assembly
House of Representatives
NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE		  
Friday, May 16, 2008

Rep. Turner: Defense of Marriage Amendment
Worth the Effort

STATEHOUSE (May 16, 2008) — We should be very worried when the wishes of the electorate are willingly — maybe even maliciously — tossed aside by activist judges.

The California Supreme Court did just that on May 15 when it ignored the will of a majority of Californians who believe that marriage should be between one man and one woman. The justices trashed a state law that was based on the results of Proposition 22, a 2000 referendum in which Californians announced they believe marriage should be between one man and one woman.

California’s justices decided to make legal what the people of California decided was counterfeit. The court stepped beyond its judicial role and legislated by fiat, making law rather than interpreting it.

This is why the fight to add the Defense of Marriage Amendment to the Indiana Constitution is worth the continued effort. We must turn to the constitution to reinforce the will of the people and protect it from relentless campaigns for social engineering.

What has appeared so logical for so long to so many — “marriage” means one woman and one man uniting for one lifetime — has been so aggressively threatened by political groups, special-interest groups and sympathetic activist judges that it is necessary to protect that idea in the constitution.

News reports noted that California Chief Justice Ronald M. George wrote that, given the historic, cultural, symbolic and constitutional significance of marriage, the state cannot limit its availability to opposite-sex couples. Justice George has it backwards: The historic, cultural, symbolic and constitutional significance of marriage are exactly why its availability should be limited. Voting and citizenship, for example, have the same significance, and that is why they have limited availability.

Although there are plenty of reasons to cite Judeo-Christian tradition in defending marriage and limiting its availability, the idea of defining and defending the longstanding, traditional approach to marriage is worthy on other common-sense levels as well:

  • Indiana already has a state law defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman. The law is based on millennia of accepted standards and has been shown to be reasonable and fair. More important, it has been shown to be constitutional.

    But, as we have recently seen in California, all this can mean nothing in the onslaught of activist judges. The Defense of Marriage Amendment thwarts that onslaught.

  • If Indiana’s definition of marriage is trashed by activist judges, what stands in the way of other laws preventing other perversions of accepted Hoosier standards of decency? Once traditional marriage is felled, arguments against polygamy, adult-child marriages or even marriages between blood relatives become bolder.
  • Research throughout the years has shown that the mother-father model works best at establishing and maintaining stable families and well-adjusted children.

    Twenty-seven states currently have a constitutional amendment defining marriage as one man and one woman. Florida citizens will likely make their state the 28th when they vote to ratify a marriage amendment this fall.

    A strong majority of members of the House of Representatives — both Republicans and Democrats — signed a petition during the 2008 session, urging that House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer (D-South Bend) and House Rules Committee Chairman Scott Pelath (D-Michigan City) give Senate Joint Resolution 7, the Defense of Marriage Amendment, a hearing before the full House. The amendment had been assigned to the House Rules Committee, and that is where it died, returning the amendment process to Square One.

    In order for this amendment to be added to the Indiana Constitution, it would have to pass two separately elected General Assemblies and then be approved in a statewide voter referendum on the next general election ballot.

    Both houses of the General Assembly had approved SJR 7 once, and the Senate, early in the 2008 session, passed SJR 7 by a 39-9 vote. Had the House approved SJR 7 — and that was likely, since it passed the same chamber 76-23 in 2005 — Hoosier voters could have voted on the issue this November.

    Now, the General Assembly must start the process all over again, but it is worth the effort to prevent activist judges from overruling the clear will of the people and putting asunder the sanctity of marriage.






    •