Living together may get harder in Indiana

Indiana's constitutional ban on gay marriage got a hearing in the Indiana House this past Tuesday. I posted before about how this will affect more than the groups targeted and my opinion on that has not changed. What has changed is that I have come to believe that either the people supporting this amendment are misguided idiots or utterly cynical sophists.

Reading The Indiana Law Blog lead me to this changed opinion on the amendment's supporters. Specifically, this portion of a quote used in this post:

He conceded the language might affect at least a hundred legal incidents of marriage – though no definition of that term is generally accepted – but only in the sense that judicial power would be curbed, not legislative.

“It should be up to you. It’s the concern that unelected judges who are not answerable to the people make policy,” Smith said. “That’s where the separation of powers breaks down.” * * *

First, we elect our trial court judges and we have retention votes on our appellate judges and so the judges in this state are answerable to the people. Second, any legislation gets enforced through the courts. Those "incidents of marriage" could easily include those belonging to straight couples. Come on, get real if you cannot get honest.

The Indiana Law Blog also has a post including a link to video of the hearing.

The first Indiana Law Blog post I linked to above was on the subject of Indiana's big employers coming out against the proposal as written.