Denial Isn’t Just a River in Egypt….

A friend has shared the most recent Newsletter from Micah Clark’s Indiana Family Institute, and the hysteria is getting palpable. An (annotated) excerpt follows.

The 2014 Indiana General Assembly begins next week.   The issue of marriage protection will likely dominate much of the session, as the media seems to want to cover some sort of angle on the issue almost daily. (That pesky media…why would it be covering a major public policy issue? And why is the coverage so sympathetic to the gays?)

Yesterday, I received calls from two legislators from opposite ends of the state. They confirmed for me that the opposition to the marriage amendment is very subjective.  (“Subjective” opposition is clearly illogical and unbiblical.  “Objective” support comes from people who agree with me.)

It is true that liberal activists have already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to prevent a vote on the amendment. They have hired 11 lobbyists from large Indianapolis law firms and have 91 field directors in place working up opposition to the amendment and creating the perception that Hoosiers now believe moms and dads are irrelevant, that gender is interchangeable, and marriage can be whatever anyone wants to make it. (Marriage has always been between one man and one woman! Not like in the bible or in all the countries that still recognize plural marriage…)

However, it was this legislator’s belief that this wave of opposition to natural marriage is entirely manufactured and distorted. (There’s a factory out there somewhere, with an assembly line turning out opponents to “natural” marriage!)  He said that he announced early on, months ago, that he would vote for the Amendment again in order to preserve marriage and to allow the people to decide this, not the activists, unelected judges or Hollywood.

I’m not quite sure where Hollywood comes into the Hoosier picture, but let’s ignore that. Let’s also ignore interesting locutions like “natural” marriage. (Hate to point this out, Micah, but no civil marriage is “natural”–the decision of government to acknowledge partnerships for the purpose of allocating legal rights and responsibilities is pretty much a man-made phenomenon.)

The inconvenient truth of the matter is that the “manufactured and distorted” opposition to constitutionalizing second-class citizenship for GLBT folks is neither manufactured nor distorted: it is the very genuine position of capitalists who want to keep Indiana open for business and citizens who believe that it isn’t government’s job to enforce religious doctrine.

Here’s the thing: you keep insisting that “the people should decide.” Actually, the entire premise of the Bill of Rights is that We the People don’t get to vote on other people’s fundamental rights–that’s why the Bill of Rights is called a “counter-majoritarian” document. We don’t get to vote on who is entitled to free speech or freedom of religion or the equal protection of the laws. No one voted on my marriage, or yours.

No one got to vote on whether Adam should have married Eve, and no one should get to vote on whether Adam gets to marry Steve.

But let’s be honest, Micah. What really has your panties in a bunch is your (well-founded) suspicion that even if HJR6 passes the legislature and goes on the ballot, you won’t win. Your time has passed. Deny it as vehemently as you like–sputter about “nature” and “children” and “interchangeable genders” (whatever that means) and “biblical truth” all you want.

You and your theocrats have lost this one.