Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma (R) on Tuesday moved the vote on a proposed constitutional same-sex marriage ban to a more conservative committee that would appear to increase the likelihood of its passage, according to the Huffington Post.
After Republicans in the Judiciary Committee expressed skepticism about the provision, Bosma moved the bill to the House Elections and Apportionment Committee.
“I responded to the overwhelming majority of the Republican caucus who have extensively lobbied me to bring this to the floor in one fashion or another,” he told the Indianapolis Star.
The move makes it more likely that the bill would come to a vote in the full House.
“It has a likelihood of making it to the floor with this route,” Bosma told the Journal Gazette. “This seemed like the best way to do it; the least intrusive and most respectful of the process.”
Democrats and some Republicans disapproved of Bosma’s decision to move the vote, according to the Indianapolis Star.
Andy Markle, a gay Republican running for a state house seat, dropped out of the race and left the Republican party because of Bosma’s decision to push for the vote, according to LGBT blog the Bilerco Project.
“As an openly gay male and a conservative, I find it deplorable that the state would choose to take such extraordinary measures to disenfranchise me and my fellow LGBT brothers and sisters,” Markle said. “I am not leaving the Republican Party; the Republican Party has left me.”
Same-sex marriage is already prohibited in Indiana under a statutory provision, but the proposal seeks to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage. If it passes in the House, the bill would head to the Senate and then to Gov. Mike Pence’s (R) desk.
