News
Election fashions mixed outlook for local LGBT rights
November 12, 2007
by John Metzinger, CCR President
With elections behind us and some new faces in city leadership, what is the forecast for local LGBT civil rights?
Democrats won big in Lafayette, gaining all seats on the city council and a landslide reelection of Mayor Tony Roswarski. For the first time in memory, everyone who was elected responded favorably to CCR’s pre-election survey, which looked at issues important to the LGBT/progressive community. Looks like sunny days ahead in Lafayette!
However, the election was stormy in West Lafayette. Many CCR members are disappointed that Mayor Jan Mills was not reelected. Mayor Jan and her husband Scott have for years shown their friendship to the LGBT community through CCR membership, and by attending many of our functions.
CCR’s leadership is reasonably assured that Mayor-Elect John Dennis will be supportive of our community—or at least that he will not work actively against us. In a face-to-face with Mr. Dennis in August, CCR members felt at ease with his level of awareness and compassion toward the LGBT community. However, Mr. Dennis did not return our survey, which does raise some uncertainty.
Democrats narrowly kept control of the West Lafayette city council. Notable was the reelection in District 3 of Ann Hunt, who has been supportive of concerns raised by our transgender community. Hunt and two of the three other Democrats on the council—Peter Bunder and Paul Michael Roales—responded favorably to our survey. Democrat Gerald Thomas and Republicans Vicki Burch, Gerry Keen, and Randy Truitt did not respond.
These uncertainties result in a foggy forecast for West Lafayette. The entire LGBT community must work together to assert our rights in both communities, guided by the hope of sunnier days ahead.
House Committee Stops SJR-7
By Randy Studt, CCR Political Action Chair/IE Region 4 Representative
The Indiana House of Representative's Rules and Legislative Procedures Committee has voted five to five thereby defeating Senate Joint Resolution 7 (SJR-7). As a result, SJR-7 dies in committee and will not be voted on by the full House of Representatives or the Indiana General Assembly.
We applaud the members of the Committee who voted against SJR-7 for their courageous action, and for standing up for the countless Hoosiers and their families who would have faced needless discrimination were this amendment to pass.
For the last two years, Indiana Equality has been working hard to build an alliance to fight SJR-7. You've seen the results in the last few weeks of the many organizations that have joined our ranks:
- five Indiana-based headquarters
- constitutional scholars
- domestic violence advocates
- municipal governments
- faith based organizations
- academic professionals
- labor unions
We also want to thank the many businesses, organizations, and individuals who stood with us in opposing SJR-7. They were instrumental in making the case that an amendment defining marriage had no business jeopardizing economic development, threatening the security of domestic violence victims, and stripping our citizens of important rights.
Today's vote by the committee is a victory against bigotry and discrimination.
Today's vote is a victory for equality. It's a victory for all of us.
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The State of Marriage Discrimination in Indiana
By Randy Studt, CCR Political Action Chair/IE Region 4 Representative
Section 38. (a) Marriage in Indiana consists only of the union of one man and one woman. (b) 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 unmarried couples or groups.
The federal marriage amendment is essentially the same as this test which passed the Indiana General Assembly in 2005, substituting United States for Indiana. On June 6th, 2006 the US Senate took up the measure under the direction of Majority Leader Bill Frist (TN). It failed to gain the needed votes to invoke cloture (or stop debate) by a 49-48 margin. This was widely seen as an election year ploy to pin down Democratic Senate candidates. How did Indiana's senators vote?
[For the remainder of this article, please see our July 2006 Newsletter.]