Story filed by NewsCenter16 Reporter Mark Peterson
Indiana - A little more than a year ago a decision from the Massachusetts Supreme Court sent shockwaves across the nation. Justices there ruled that state's ban on gay marriages was unconstitutional.On Thursday, three justices on the Indiana Court of Appeals weighed in on the same subject and reached a very different conclusion.Indiana's law banning gay marriage was upheld and no constitutional problems were found.The three-judge Appeals Court Panel that reviewed the matter included former St. Joseph County Prosecutor Michael Carnes, and the decision was unanimous.Just last May, the world watched, as Massachusetts became the first State in the union to allow same sex marriages."Sometimes you hear the argument made, 'What's dangerous about the Massachusetts ruling?' It means that ruling is going to be applied to every other state. That's not likely," said Rick Garnell, Notre Dame Law School.That wasn't the case in Indiana where justices ruled with children in mind. They wrote that marriage was the way in which biological drives were directed into socially accepted activity, all so children will be provided with a stable environment.That provided a rational basis for the legislature to draw the line or discriminate in granting marriage rights to opposite sex couples who can re-produce and denying them to same sex couples who can't reproduce"For many years I've officiated at ceremonies of commitment for same sex couples," said Gordon Gibson, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Elkhart.As a minister in Elkhart, Gibson has presided over dozens of such ceremonies. He hopes what the Unitarian Fellowship long ago deemed morally acceptable, would someday become legally acceptable in Indiana."I hope that our society, our civil society, will come to the point of similarly offering support to all couples gay and straight who are willing to commit to having a strong stable loving growing relationship," said Gibson.While last year brought an abrupt change to the status quo in Massachusetts, things in Indiana will remain the same.Of course some states are going the extra mile to protect their laws banning gay marriage.Last November, voters in 11 states, including Michigan, approved referendums to incorporate such bans, directly into their state constitutions, arguably, in direct response to what happened in Massachusetts.
