Study: Same-sex marriage amendment would impact 600 Indiana laws

Over nine months of analysis, a group of students at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law said such an amendment’s impact would range from blocking same-sex couples from receiving tax and pension benefits to allowing those couples to skirt conflict-of-interest laws.

“Our goal in this project has been to create an impartial resource that will facilitate a discussion on what a constitutional amendment actually involves,” said Cara M. Johnson, one of the law students who worked on the report.

The result is a list of 614 reasons for Indiana to reject the amendment, said Rick Sutton, the former president of Indiana Equality Action, a pro-gay rights group.

“I think the sheer volume of potential conflicts and issues is going to surprise a lot of people,” he said, predicting that adopting the amendment would prompt countless county- and state-level legal battles over its implications.

Until the Nov. 6 election, supporters of traditional one-man, one-woman marriage won electoral battles in 32 consecutive states. But this year, same-sex marriage proponents won statewide ballot battles in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington.

Indiana lawmakers are considering whether to take the second step of the three-step process to amend the same-sex marriage ban into the state’s constitution. If they do, voters would have the final say in a November 2014 referendum.

“The voters are way ahead of the General Assembly on this issue. Should it go to the ballot in 2014, we already have a campaign plan prepared. We’re ready,” Sutton said. He predicted the issue would receive the same amount of attention as a governor’s race.

“We watched Nov. 6, too, and the national momentum on this is moving very, very quickly, and very, very well in our opinion. Public opinion polls are quite clear: The public does not want to see their constitution amended for this issue.”

Eric Miller, the head of Advance America and an advocate for a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman, said the report is not persuasive.

“The amendment is not new. The debate is not new. The debate is very, very simple: Should Indiana pass a constitutional amendment to protect marriage as between one man and one woman. The voters of Indiana deserve to have that say,” he said.

Miller said just like opponents, the advocates of the amendment will roll out a coordinated campaign that will involve emails and mailers, public service announcements, and reaching out to church networks.

“We’ll continue to mobilize our grassroots network of several thousand churches of families throughout the state of Indiana to support the marriage amendment in the 2013 General Assembly, and then we’ll be educating people about the importance of this amendment come November 2014,” Miller said.

Amending the constitution in Indiana is a three-step process.

First, the state legislature must approve an amendment. That’s what happened in 2011, when the House and Senate green-lighted the same-sex marriage ban.

Second, a separately-elected House and Senate must approve the exact same language. That’s what’s expected to happen in either 2013 or 2014, with the same Republicans who led their chambers in 2011 still in place.

Finally, Indiana voters get a say. As long as lawmakers approve the measure this year without making any changes, the same-sex marriage ban would the subject of a statewide referendum in 2014.

A major wrinkle would come if lawmakers consider changes to the second half of the proposed amendment so that they could advance a constitutional same-sex marriage ban without impacting the state’s authority to recognize same-sex relationships.

The incoming lieutenant governor, Republican Sue Ellspermann, voted in favor of such a change as a member of the Indiana House in 2011.

However, Republican Gov.-elect Mike Pence has long advocated for one-man, one-woman marriage, which is all that’s allowed under Indiana’s current laws. He has also said he will have state agencies draft “family impact statements” to determine whether regulations encourage or discourage marriage.

The IU law students’ report laid out a number of examples of laws that would be impacted – or where lawmakers’ ability to clear up potential discrepancies would be limited – if the constitutional same-sex marriage ban is approved.

Among the benefits same-sex couples lose, Johnson said, are the entitlement for spouses of deceased Hoosiers to receive half of their estate or more, as well as pension and state university tuition benefits for the same-sex spouses of fallen police, firefighters and members of the military.

Meanwhile, all Hoosiers lose some conflict-of-interest protections, she said. Hoosiers can’t serve as precinct election officers if their spouses are on the ballot – a rule that applies to married couples, but not same-sex couples. Credit unions can make loans to their own officers, but those loans have limits that apply to both spouses – and would not apply to same-sex couples.

Neither of the constitutional same-sex marriage ban’s primary sponsors in recent years – Rep. Eric Turner, R-Cicero, and Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn – were available to comment on the report’s findings Monday.

The majority House and Senate Republicans’ staffs said they planned to study the report’s findings before addressing it.

Sutton predicted that Monday’s report would help his side’s cause.

“Our opponents’ message has not changed. It hasn’t changed for the last nine years. It’s the same arguments – nothing’s new,” Sutton said.

“The beauty of our argument is, we now have 614 reasons to show you that your laws could be affected. Pick one – pick any one. Does it concern you? I think that resonates with a lot of people.”