Breaking: Indiana Committee Passes Bill Allowing Voters To Ban Same-Sex Marriage
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After hearing over four hours of explanation and testimony, a Republican-led Indiana House committee has just advanced a bill that would place before voters the question of whether or not to ban same-sex marriage in the state constitution. The one-sided ballot initiative would not allow voters to allow same-sex couples to marry, however. The full Indiana House is expected to vote on the legislation soon.
The House Elections and Apportionment Committee, by a vote of 9-3, voted to allow the full House to vote on the legislation. Committee Chairman Rep. Milo Smith, a Republican, rammed through and voted for the bill. He was asked to delay the vote and refused. The bill’s sponsor is Rep. Eric Turner, shown above explaining the legislation to the committee today.
The controversial bill is likely unconstitutional, as similar bans against same-sex marriage have been struck down by federal judges across the nation, most recently in Utah, and by state legislatures, as in Hawaii.
The anti-gay testimony exclusively from the professional, anti-gay evangelical-funded religious right, including attorneys from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Most of those who spoke in support of the legislation were not from Indiana. It was not disclosed if they were paid or compensated for their testimony or reimbursed for their expenses.
Others included Dr. Brent Jacobus, who claimed he owns a hospital. Jacobus (image, right,) also claimed that same-sex marriage would harm his business, and strongly suggested that heterosexuals live longer than homosexuals.
Rev. Ron Johnson was another anti-gay testifier. Last week, Johnson warned same-sex marriage would lead to “sexual anarchy.” Today he warned of “government thought police” and “sexual sin.” Johnson warned that same-sex marriage would take away the right of the faithful to discriminate against gay people.
Many who testified also falsely claimed that same-sex marriage deprives children of a mother and a father — which they claimed, through various statements from quasi-scientific studies or misleading and cherry-picked statements from pro-equality people, like Barack Obama, harms children.
“A man cannot be a mother, and a woman cannot be a father,” one said.
Rev. Andrew Hunt somehow tried to make the argument that same-sex marriage infringes on his rights as an African-American because of slavery, but also claiming that LGBT rights are not civil rights. “Which one of these things from the civil rights era is analjegous [sic] to the gay marriage movement?”
Many also claimed that if Indiana bans same-sex marriage in its constitution, “nothing will change,” and yet also claimed the very institution of marriage is at stake.
But the opponents of the discriminatory legislation far outweighed the proponents, and the committee was forced to extend the time for testimony to accommodate all those who showed up to today’s hearing.
Maria Rose of Cummins Engineering (NYSE:CMI), a $17.3 billion international corporation, delivered a passionate plea to vote down the legislation, stating that times have changed in the past decade — Indiana has been debating this amendment for that long.
“People come to Cummins because of our core values… Our board of directors is fully supportive” of same-sex marriage.
Rose said that Cummins has lost employees because of the anti-gay laws in Indiana.
Carol Trexler, diagnosed with lung cancer, discussed her unsanctioned marriage to another woman, and what their lives are like. “People understand what marriage means. They don’t understand what Donna and I are… Because we were not married Donna could not take medical leave to care for me.”
Here is Carol Trexler. Had chemo treatment today. “I want to make sure Donna’s with me at end” and treated right pic.twitter.com/R7mGu1PyRN
— Jon Murray (@indyJonMurray) January 22, 2014
Trexler came to today’s hearing after having chemo therapy this morning. “This issue is that important to me.” She talked about all the legal forms they’ve had to fill out to protect themselves, expensive forms that many same-sex couples cannot afford. “Every form I filled out was another reminder that we were treated differently.” “I want to be sure that Donna will be with me at the end and that she will have the same rights of a surviving spouse.” “We want to be have the same protections as our married neighbors, the protections that this amendment would prohibit under law.” “This issue is that important to me”
As our opponents discuss the “threat” to marriage in #IN, remember that it’s families like this who #HJR3 would harm: pic.twitter.com/mgWQi3uNy5
— Freedom Indiana (@freedom_indiana) January 22, 2014
Another woman who said she is straight and married, and opposed to banning same-sex marriage asked, “Who voted on my marriage rights?,” and added, “I’m a citizen of the United States and we are not a theocracy.”
Elizabeth Reese lamented to lawmakers, “we should be quoting the constitution instead of referencing the Bible.”
Henry Fernandez told the committee that he and his partner have been together for 19 years, and have been raising twins for 13 years. When they moved into the same neighborhood as Speaker Bosma lives, Fernandez said, “divorce rates did not go up, no neighbors moved, property values did not drop…we are not a threat to any family in our neighborhood.”
“A family’s love should not be subjected to a legislative vote or a statewide referendum,” Fernandez added.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
