Terri Austin was emotional ...

defending the First Amendment against the Christian right ...

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Terri Austin was emotional in the Statehouse on Tuesday, April 03, 2007. The Democratic representative from Anderson was about to vote on the proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

by Steve Dick, The Herald Bulletin, (Anderson, Indiana), April 04, 2007

Terri Austin was emotional in the Statehouse on Tuesday. The Democratic representative from Anderson was about to vote on the proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

There was something about it she -- and many other Democrats -- didn’t like. After wrestling with her conscience, she voted no.

The bill’s first provision was to recognize marriage as a union between man and woman. But the second provision was the sticking point. It said that state law "may not be construed to require that marital status or the legal incident of marriage be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."

Austin said critics will probably say she is in favor of gay marriage, but that’s not the case.

"I do not believe in gay marriage, and if I believed that my vote would have allowed gay marriage in Indiana to take place, I would have never voted no on this particular amendment," she said.

The ban was listed as Senate Joint Resolution 7. Such resolutions are on track to become amendments to the Indiana Constitution. The Senate had passed the resolution earlier this session. In 2004, the House and Senate both passed a marriage amendment. It takes two separate sessions of the General Assembly to pass the resolution and put it on the ballot for Hoosier voters to decide. Now that could be years away.

"I’m really disappointed in Austin changing her vote," said Eric Turner, D-Marion, who sponsored the resolution in the House. Austin, he said, had indicated she would be in favor of the amendment. "At least one of the opponents of the bill felt she was the deciding vote."

Austin pointed out that Indiana has had a marriage definition law on the books since 1998. She claimed that proponents of the second provision pushed the resolution further than the federal marriage amendment. She said lobbying proponents, such as Advance America, were trying to intimidate people.

"I support defining marriage between a man and a woman, but if we put this before the Legislature, we need to be clear what we’re doing."

Opponents of the resolution saw it as a detriment to economic development in Indiana. Austin said the state could curtail private groups that offer domestic partnership benefits and also blur the lines of who is responsible in domestic violence issues.

Kerry Blomquist, legal counsel from the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said in a letter to Austin that the second provision "precludes judges from recognizing any ‘marriage-like’ benefits to unmarried individuals," contrary to Indiana’s domestic battery statute.

"Unmarried abusers in Ohio are literally using the Marriage Protection Amendment as a defense in their criminal domestic battery cases, and they’re winning," wrote Blomquist.

"Section B (of the resolution) negatively affects domestic violence laws," said Austin.

Turner wasn’t moved. "The opponents used bogus arguments," he said. "We had constitutional lawyers look at it. The arguments were used by the opponents to confuse the issue."

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