Indiana Senate Stalls Proposed Gay Marriage Ban Until at Least 2016

A gay-marriage ban in Indiana isn’t heading to the ballot anytime in the near future, thanks to a decision by the state senate.

After a lot of vocal protests and lobbying surrounding the proposed ban, the vote was met with relative silence on the Indiana Senate floor:

A decision Thursday by the Indiana Senate not to restore the original
language of the proposed constitutional amendment means that even if it
passes, as expected, during a final vote Monday, it would have to
pass a future legislature and couldn’t go before voters until at least
2016.

Some Republican lawmakers wanted to also include a ban on civil unions in the bill. (Talk about turning the clock back, folks. Ridiculous.)That provision had been removed from the bill in the House, and while there was talk of having it reinstated, it never was put to a vote in the Senate. And then the whole thing went down in spectacular defeat anyway.

Bigots, I mean, “supporters” of the gay marriage ban, vow to continue to ~~pander to an ever-shrinking base of extremists who they will try to squeeze campaign funds out of until they dry up forever~~ push for the bill’s passage:

Supporters were disappointed at the outcome but vowed to continue fighting for the measure, known as House Joint Resolution 3.

“We
view this as a delay, not a defeat,” said Eric Miller, founder and
executive director of Advance America, a conservative advocacy group
pushing the amendment. “We’re still going to work to pass a
constitutional amendment to protect marriage between a man and a woman.”

Good luck with that, say legal experts in the state:

“The chances of this making it are getting slimmer and slimmer,” said
Robert Dion, a political science professor at the University of
Evansville. “The yearslong push just took a big body blow. The Senate
was the place to make the last stand — and it didn’t even happen.”