UUCC Hendricks County

On September 8th, I had the opportunity to attend a planning meeting with Freedom Indiana at Life Journey Church in Indianapolis. The meeting was packed! At least 100 people were there, from Indy, Bloomington, and even further away. The energy in the room was awesome.

Freedom Indiana is a bipartisan group, run by Rick Sutton from IE Action. The board also includes delegates from Cummins Inc. and Eli Lily. Other partners include HRC, Freedom to Marry, American Unity Fund, the Gill Action Fund and the ACLU of Indiana. They are currently working here in Indiana to prevent HJR-6 from making it to the ballot in November.

So, what is HJR-6? HJR-6 is a two sentence bill that has been put forth in the Indiana General Assembly to amend the State Constitution to ban gay marriage. It has to pass the General Assembly twice, and then it would go on the ballot as a referendum. It’s already passed once, and they’re going to try again during the next session, which runs from Jan. 4 through March 15.

The problem is, not only does HJR-6 repeat our current state law against marriage equality and enshrine it in the Constitution, but it also states that “A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized.” Unfortunately, no one knows how broadly that second sentence would be enforced. Obviously, it means that there couldn’t be Civil Unions or Domestic Partnerships in our state, but does it extend as far as same-sex partner benefits for state employees? No one is sure.

Either way, this is the tenth year that Indiana has fought against this type of amendment, and we want to stop it in it’s tracks once and for all. In order to stop it in the General Assembly, it either needs to be voted down or the clock has to run out for the session. If it does pass the General Assembly, it’ll be on the ballot for the mid-term elections in November 2014, which would give us only 8 months to educate people in the whole state about why HJR-6 is not cool.

The good news is that some legislators have already decided to change their vote this session because they’ve learned how damaging this amendment would be. Others, including our newly elected local State Senator, Peter Miller, can possibly be swayed. If enough people call and write their legislators, then they’ll realize how seriously people are taking this possible infringement on basic LGBT rights.

So, by now, hopefully you’re wondering how you can help…

1. Most importantly, you can go to http://openstates.org/in, find your district, and call your representatives! If you’re not sure what to say, simply give the person your name, where you’re from, and tell them something like “I’m calling to ask {my representative} to vote no on HJR-6 during the next session. It’s not only redundant, but it’s discriminatory and wrong. We don’t need discrimination in our State Constitution.”
2. If you’re like me and don’t like phones very much, you can write them a letter! UUCC will be hosting letter writing parties after service, or you can contact me at any time for help writing and sending a letter to your legislator. If we can bury them in letters, they won’t be able to ignore us!
3. After you’ve written to your representatives, write a Letter to the Editor! The more people we can inform about HJR-6, the more letters and phone calls our reps. will get.
4. While we’re at it, talk to your friends, your neighbors, your family…anyone you know who you think can contact their representatives. If you need help talking to people about HJR-6, FairTalk has a resource page with both HJR-6 talking points and tips for talking to people about contentious issues like marriage equality.
5. Finally, if you have the time, contact Freedom Indiana to volunteer. They’ll be hosting phone banks in Indianapolis to contact voters about HJR-6 and can always use more help!

I’ll see you all Sunday at church! I’ll have my letter writing stuff with me if anyone wants to get started. Thank you for Standing on the Side of Love and working with us to Stop HJR-6!

Chris

email us: socialjustice@uucchc.org