I am neither a Republican nor gay. But I am a church-going seventh-generation Hoosier. I am also a labor and employment attorney with an intense interest in public policy, particularly as it relates to workplace rights and benefits. As a lawyer, I also understand the primacy of a constitution in the hierarchy of laws. I am thus profoundly interested, as should be all citizens, in any attempt to amend this venerable document we call the Indiana Constitution in a way that may adversely affect workers.

I thus read with keen interest the “Faceoff” debate in the Indianapolis Star between Curt Smith of the Indiana Family Institute and Chris Douglas of First Republicans [the headline erroneously referred to Mr. Douglas as an attorney] concerning SJR-7, a proposal to amend the Indiana Constitution to ban marriage between any two persons other than a male and a female, but which would also prohibit judges from “constru[ing]” any Indiana law in a way that confers the “legal incidents of marriage” upon “unmarried couples or groups”. I have never met either of these gentlemen, nor was I any more than passingly familiar with their respective organizations. But I believe that amending our constitution should be reserved only for the most important and pressing public policy issues. I would be concerned about any amendment that would dilute or conflict with any of the protections our forefathers bequeathed to succeeding generations in our 1851 Constitution.

Especially since Mr. Smith refers to opponents of SJR-7, such as Mr. Douglas, as a “small group of intensely motivated gay rights activists” whom he claims use “ad hominem attacks and inflammatory tactics”, I thought I should begin my research by learning more about the First Republicans organization Mr. Douglas represents. So I went to their website. What I discovered is that First Republicans believe that the Republican Party should reflect the ideals of Abraham Lincoln; that government derives its authority from the governed and that equal rights and justice belong to all people regardless of their race, religion or sexual orientation; that no group should be allowed to force their particular religious beliefs on the rest of us; and that “civility, tolerance and statesmanlike behavior, [not] character assassination” should be the guideposts in public debate. Pretty radical stuff.

Then I sought to learn more about Mr. Smith’s organization. I learned that the Indiana Family Institute is an affiliate of Focus on the Family (FOF), whose founder and chairman, Dr. James Dobson, is perhaps the most influential right-wing Christian leader in the country. I learned that FOF is based in Colorado and has over 1300 employees and an annual budget of over $130 million. I learned that FOF is not only anti-gay, it is also opposed to sex education curricula that are not strictly abstinence-only; that it believes that the First Amendment’s doctrine of separation of church and state is “phony”; that it opposes all hate crime legislation; that it is opposed to giving what it calls “special rights” to homosexuals; and that it believes there is a “homosexual agenda” and associates homosexuals with pedophilia and recruitment of children as sex partners.

So should readers of The Star believe Mr. Smith of the Indiana Family Institute when he blithely says that the second sentence of SJR-7 is “simply designed to prevent the courts from creating something the legislature and voters never intended”? Or should we believe Mr. Douglas of the First Republicans when he asserts SJR-7 will not only deny gay persons the right to marry but that its second paragraph will also prevent any Indiana court from allowing any state or local institution or unit of government from granting to same-sex couples the benefits those of us who are in traditional heterosexual relationships take for granted-- spousal health insurance benefits, the right to take time off work to grieve the death of a spouse, the right to file joint tax returns, and the right to pursue happiness and contentment through loving relationships without governmental interference in our personal lives? You be the judge.

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