Tagged: constitutional amendment

Indiana voters would decide in next year's election whether to add the right to hunt, fish and farm to the state constitution under a proposal approved by state senators.

The Indiana Senate voted 38-10 today  in favor of the proposed amendment. It would go before voters in the 2014 general election if the House also approves the proposal.

Indiana would join 17 other states, including Kentucky, with similar constitutional protections for hunting and fishing. Supporters say the measures are needed because those activities are threatened by animal-rights activists.

Indiana's Republican House and Senate leaders will wait a year before they take up an effort to write the state's gay marriage ban into the constitution.

House Speaker Brian Bosma  and Senate President Pro Tem David Long said today  that their respective caucuses decided the issue should wait until the 2014 session.

Long and Bosma have said they are apprehensive of taking on the issue before the Supreme Court rules on related cases this summer. Social conservatives in the House and Senate had pressed them to tackle the issue this year.

Indiana legislative leaders expect to decide soon whether to take up a proposal during the current session to write a gay marriage ban into the state constitution.

Republican Senate President Pro Tem David Long and Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma say they will make their decision after consulting with their respective caucuses next week.

Their statements follow reports from the Evansville Courier and Press that a majority of lawmakers on the House and Senate panels that would vet the ban want to wait until next year.

The mayor of Bloomington, Ind., plans to conduct a wedding ceremony for more than a dozen gay and lesbian couples this week to protest a proposed state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

The ceremony Thursday in Bloomington, presided over by Mayor Mark Kruzan, coincides with a local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender film festival.     It was first reported by the Indianapolis Star.