HJR-6, Heading South?

 

Thursday the City Council will consider the  resolution printed below.

 

While it is true that resolutions are simply statements, with no force of law or consequences backing them up, it is also true that at times making a statement is preferable to silent acquiescence of the status quo.

 

For those who have followed the debate surrounding the proposed constitutional amendment to which the resolution refers, numerous articles and statements have pointed out that Indiana faces a choice between a retrograde stance and an open-minded acceptance of modern America. Last Saturday's Tribune had an excellent offering from Morton Marcus about the choice we face, I tried to link to it but couldn't navigate the terrain.

 

A carefully chosen phrase is in the resolution, "states of the Union".  We seldom hear of the states of the Union these days, and it harkens to a time reminiscent of the Civil War. Many of the policies pursued recently in Indiana suggest that many of our leaders would be more comfortable in any of the Confederate redoubts south of the Mason Dixon line.  A friend has begun to refer to our state as Indissippi.

 

We need not go down that road.

 

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WHEREAS:  Certain legislators in the State of Indiana have offered for consideration an amendment to the Constitution of the State of Indiana, House Joint Resolution-6, regarding a definition of the State of Marriage within our state, and

 

WHEREAS: This constitutional amendment has been forcefully opposed by a leading educational institution of our state and by some of the most respected and renowned corporate entities within our state, Indiana University, Eli Lilly and Co., and Cummins Engines, among others, and

 

WHEREAS:  One of the primary reasons these institutions have opposed the constitutional amendment, beyond its inherent intolerance, is the effect it would have on commerce, competitiveness,  and the recruitment of open-minded, talented people needed to further the goals and aims of these institutions, and

 

WHEREAS:  The flow of history in the United States is in the direction of greater openness and inclusiveness, more tolerance and acceptance of persons of diverse views, backgrounds, heritages and orientations, and

 

WHEREAS:  Greater acceptance of diversity of all kinds is a Twenty First Century extrapolation of the views put forth by our Eighteenth Century founders, and

 

WHEREAS:  Current Indiana law: 

IC 31-11-1-1

Same sex marriages prohibited

Sec. 1. (a) Only a female may marry a male. Only a male may

marry a female.

(b) A marriage between persons of the same gender is void in

Indiana even if the marriage is lawful in the place where it is

solemnized.

 

 obviates the need for a restrictive constitutional amendment,  as detailed in House Joint Resolution 6.

 

NOW THEREFORE:  The Common Council of the City of New Albany, Indiana, by this resolution, does hereby express its opposition to HJR-6, and

 

FURTHER:  Asks that our Hoosier state, by rejecting HJR-6,  be seen among our sister states of the Union more as a center of tolerance and acceptance of human differences, than a place of exclusion and intolerance, and

 

FINALLY: That our state constitution not be used as a political device to further the aims of one political party in its appeals to the intolerance and fears of some citizens of our state.