Skip to footer

Gay marriage battlegrounds: 7 states to watch

In the states, the battle over gay marriage is gathering steam. Federal judges have preempted local efforts toward legal gay marriage in some states, while activists in other states are gearing up for ballot measures. One state may be moving toward a stronger defense of traditional marriage. Here's the state-by-state rundown.

7. Indiana

(Updated Feb. 13, 2014) Indiana is one of the few states with a law banning gay marriage and no constitutional amendment.

In 2011, the state legislature voted for a constitutional ban, but the measure needed to pass the legislature again to go on the ballot. On Feb. 13, 2014, a different version of the gay marriage ban – one that did not bar other forms of relationship recognition, such as civil unions – advanced in the Indiana legislature. That means advocates of a constitutional ban on gay marriage in Indiana must start over; there will be no measure on the ballot this November. 

Opponents of the ban began organizing early in 2013 and lined up backing from powerful names in the state's business and higher education communities, according to ABC News. Gov. Mike Pence (R), a strong social conservative, voiced support for the ban in his State of the State address, but later said he was bowing out of the legislative debate.

A March 2013 poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found 46 percent of Indianans favor the right to same-sex marriage and 47 percent oppose it. But in December 2012, 54 percent of Indiana residents said they oppose changing the state constitution to ban gay marriage, with only 34 percent in support, according to a survey by the Bowen Center for Public Affairs at Ball State University and WISH-TV. 

7 of 7
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.