Thank you, Bil.

Bil:

Posting from D.C. I'm trying to follow this debate--if one can call it that. Would you mind writing a post that outlines what will likely happen next with regard to SJR-7? What are its prospects for passage and who will be the key players going forward? Thanks for your consideration. -pmpn

A lot of emotion, and it's appreciated, but...

the real battle is, and always was, across the hall in the House. Pace yourself. We'll be lucky to get 15 total votes in the Senate.

I like the Overcome anthem, but, fair warning: there are many, many African-Americans I know who consider the use of that song for causes other than theirs, to be somewhat irritating.

And the Black Caucus members aren't totally on board with our cause anyway.

Tred lightly, but tred with the truth, as you have been.

(How is the tipline coming?)

Thanks for the report, and thanks to IAN and the others for representing us. But I think this more of a skirmish than a battle. The House, now that's the battle.

And for "Prime Minister Pete Nice" - SJR-7 must pass unaltered in two successive legislatures by both the senate and house and then it can go for a to a vote of the people. So having passed in the previous legislature, it must now be passed by the senate and the house of this legislative session (simple majorities, I believe). Then it goes up for a vote by the people in Nov. 2008.

The big question is if it will pass the house or even get out of committee there. If it doesn't then it's dead and has to be renewed again by the next legislature. There it must pass and then pass again in the succeeding legislature before going to a vote of the people. So if the house doesn't pass it, it may be 2012 or even later before it could get to a vote of the people again.

Lynn, with all due respect, I'd say we lost the "battle" - but we haven't lost the war. :) That was the saying I was thinking of when I wrote the piece.

Also, it's come to my attention that while Glenn Tebbe was on the list of speakers in favor of SJR-7, he didn't actually speak. Told you I was tuned out at that part! *grins*

I know this post is long, so thanks for reading all the way through it. It might be a little melodramatic, but it just pisses me off so much to see these people stripping away our rights so callously and with total disregard to the people who will be hurt by their vote.

You left out the six citizens that signed up in the hall to speak. The chair let us anti folks go 15 min. over our time. The pro side had no citizens sign up to speak.

I drove from Battle Ground, near Lafayette, to make my little speech.

Meredith, and all others--watch for the House scheudle on this (sure to pass) Senate bill, and return! I think the audience will be a little more receptive.

Bil,

Thanks for chronicling the committee meeting and fighting the good fight. Don't give up. My family won't.

Phil

Meredith, No slight intended. I wasn't able to jot down everyone's name that spoke from the floor. I knew Chris spoke because I know Chris so well from the blog and working together in the past. Please accept my apology for not recognizing you as well.

I just wanted to make a small correction. The fabulous Kerry Hyatt Blomquist spells her name with one 'o,' not two.

Not everyone who disagrees with you is a homophobe.

No, but everyone who says I'm not equal to my straight neighbor is...

Posted on the Star's Forum:

Indiana is well on its way to proving that the majority of its people are too stupid to tell the difference between religious and civil marriage and/or too venally bigoted to care that they're shooting themselves in the foot in the process.

The people who will pay for it most are the poorest among them, particularly seniors and impoverished single mothers and their children but that won't matter as long as they can lie to themselves legislatively that their marriages are somehow better than those of their gay fellow citizens.

It's about smug het supremacism -- a baseless piece of fiction on numerous counts -- different only from that of the white sheeted crowd's in methodology of lashing out, not by degree of vehemence.

Fools, we'll still be able to religiously marry in Hoosierland, just as we always have been able to. The Indiana Constitution does not trump the First Amendment of the U.S. one nor would even the Federal Marriage Amendment repeal it.

Way to go, legis-bigots -- backwards, that is.

-- Mrs. Marla Randolph Stevens
Religiously married to Mrs. Phyllis Rowe Stevens since 1984.
Civilly married to Mrs. Phyllis Rowe Stevens since 2003 -- a civil marriage that may not be recognized in the U.S. but which was lawfully entered into and valid in a large and growing portion of the civilized world nonetheless.

P.S. No one owns "We Shall Overcome". Sing it, sing patriotic songs, sing loudly until your vocal cords beg for relief, then keep on singing.

The people who would be pissed of by it weren't going to stand with you to begin with. They're the heirs to the ones who tried to suppress their own movement's brilliant gay leadership at the time. If nothing else, that leadership and the many non-black gay people like Barbara Deming who put ourselves on the line for black civil rights earned ourselves and our people the right to use that song and others from that era.

Sing on.