Setting The Record Straight On Garton & The GLBT Community

Following the defeat of 36-year Senate veteran and President Pro Tem Robert Garton in Tuesday's Indiana primary election, AI and its editor, Gary R. Welsh, have been the subject of criticism from certain quarters of the GLBT community (IE) for causing the defeat of the "one of the greatest friends we've had in the legislature". In particular, these individuals believe that by making an issue of Sen. Garton's health insurance for life legislative perk, AI fueled the fire that consumed Garton's re-election hopes.

While AI is very flattered to be credited with causing the defeat of one of Indiana's most powerful politicians, we're grounded enough to know just how ludicrous that assertion is. On our best day, this site is visited by no more than a 1,000 people. And not many of those visitors live in Sen. Garton's district. But if reporting the truth about this absurd taxpayer ripoff in any way contributed to Sen. Garton's defeat, then we gladly accept credit; however, AI would be remiss if we didn't extend credit where it is really due. AI thinks the good work of The Howey Political Report and The Indiana Law Blog in reporting on Garton's legislative perk should merit them in sharing more of this honor.

What really has caused us to pause and take a hard look at this criticsm is that AI somehow failed to recognize the contributions of one of the GLBT's greatest friends in the legislature, particularly when there are so few of them to begin with. Has Sen. Garton been a secret ally of the gay community all these years and we just didn't know it? Inquiring minds want to know.

For the record, in the nearly one year this site has been operating, AI has not once been contacted by Garton or anyone working in any capacity for him to disabuse us of any notion that he was anything but unsympathetic to the GLBT community. In a conversation with a lobbyist, who formerly worked for Garton, the opinion was expressed to me that Garton was not anti-gay like Bosma because he had a very close member of his own family who was gay. As I lifted my jaw off the floor, I couldn't help but wonder why a man who has prided himself in projecting an image of being a statesman and a calming voice of moderation had not only allowed the Senate to hear and pass a constitutional amendment (SJR-7 to ban gay marriages) to discriminate against gays and lesbians, but actually voted for it. And this was not the first time he voted to legalize such discrimination. In 1995, the legislature with Sen. Garton's assistance enacted Indiana's Defense of Marriage Act.

Those within the GLBT community who defend Garton say that I'm not being fair to Garton. They tell me that we have to give him a pass on SJR-7. They tell me that we had to give him a chance to get the monkey off his back so he could satisfy the whackos in his caucus for the time being. Because a constitutional amendment must pass 2 successive sessions of the legislature in the exact same form, they assure me that Garton would never allow it to pass the second time, or at least not in the same form, thereby forcing its supporters to bring the issue back before the legislature yet a third time 2 years later before they would have a chance to submit it to the state's voters. Of course, these same people had earlier felt confident in 2005 that Garton would be their savior on SJR-7. In fact, as its identifier indicates, SJR-7 originated in the Senate, where it passed overwhelmingly before being passed by the House by an equally overwhelming majority with the full blessing and support of Speaker Brian Bosma.

Laying aside the gay marriage debate, Garton's defenders assure me that he has been our best friend when it comes to mean-spirited efforts by the Christian right to deny gays and lesbians the right to adopt children. The reality is that the Indiana Court of Appeals has been the greatest defender when it comes to the parental rights of gays and lesbians. The Indiana legislature has not enacted one single piece of legislation during Sen. Garton's 36-year legislative career to defend that right. And while Garton's defenders may believe he has been instrumental in blocking legislative attempts to discriminate against gay parent adoptions, Garton needed only to rely on a Senate rule barring consideration of legislation that would affect the outcome of pending litigation (See e.g., Indiana Law Blog). If you reflect on those previous legislative attempts, they were in direct response to cases that were making their way through the appelllate process.

On the matter of Sen. Pat Miller and her extremist attempt to regulate assisted reproduction as a means of denying children to gay parents, it was Sen. Garton who killed that idea these defenders maintain. Really, and who put Sen. Miller in charge of health care in the Senate? And those thousands of phone calls that flooded the State House in the wake of a blogosphere-led protest had nothing to do with it? C'mon folks, Sen. Miller couldn't take the heat and got the hell out of the kitchen.

And what about when Gov. Mitch Daniels enacted his own non-discrimination policy for state workers that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity? For weeks, the Christian right launched daily attacks against the Governor for enacting the policy. Did Sen. Garton defend Gov. Daniel's' policy? He didn't have a single word to say about it.

Well, maybe he didn't really help us out on that issue either, but these Garton defenders are very proud of the fact that, with Sen. Garton's help, we were able to get a hate crimes law passed in Indiana which includes sexual orientation a few years ago. Despite correcting these individuals on numerous occasions, they continue to repeat the false assertion that Indiana enacted a hate crimes law. The law they refer to only requires the reporting of hate crimes, which includes hate crimes committed because of a person's sexual orientation. The sad truth is that Indiana is just one of 4 states in the country without a hate crimes law, let alone one that covers sexual orientation. We share that dubious honor with Arkansas, South Carolina and Wyoming. And when Marion Co. Prosecutor Carl Brizzi approached legislative leaders about his own hate crimes proposal for this past legislative session, which would have included sexual orientation, he was told to forget it.

But these Garton defenders assure me that Brizzi's turndown had nothing to do with Garton's opposition; it was because it was a short session and there wouldn't be time for such matters. Does anyone ever recall a short session which produced more far-reaching legislation than the 2006 legislative session, Gov. Daniels' Major Moves and several unsuccessful anti-abortion bills topping that long list? And the legislature did manage to find time in this session to consider a mean-spirited amendment offered by Rep. Jeff Thompson to the eminent domain overhaul bill, which would have denied the right of local governments to enact ordinances to protect gays, lesbians and transgender persons from discrimination, and which would have nullified all existing ordinances, such as the one passed by Indianapolis earlier this year.

And the real funny part about the Thompson ordeal was when these same Garton defenders explained to me that Speaker Bosma had done a real favor for the GLBT community by asking the sponsor to withdraw the amendment, ignoring the fact that his staff drafted the amendment, and that he was the person sitting in the Speaker's chair who recognized Rep. Thompson for purposes of offering his amendment and allowing a lengthy debate to ensue. Speaker Bosma didn't withdraw the amendment as a favor to the GLBT community, he did it to end the chaotic debate which was erupting within his own caucus and over-shadowing the message the eminent domain bill was suppose to be sending. But this standard refrain from these "leaders" of the GLBT community exemplifies the contorted logic they use in redefining legislative enemies of the GLBT community as friends.

Notwithstanding the valiant efforts of some to defend Garton as a great friend of the GLBT community, I find nothing in his 36-year record to draw such a conclusion. To be fair to Sen. Garton, early in his career, he sponsored the Equal Rights Amendment to the chagrin of many of his more conservative Republican colleagues. At the time, Garton described the amendment as "Indiana's first attack on systemic discrimination'" against women. Critics at the time charged that it would also provide equality to "homosexuals", although there is no indication in the record that was a type of discrimination Garton intended to attack. He faced opposition from Speaker Bosma's father, who was then serving in the Senate. Speaking in opposition to ERA, Sen. Charles Bosma said it "would deal a severe blow to the time-honored relationship between husbands and wifes." Whatever higher ideas Garton believed in 30 years ago when he sponsored ERA, they seemed to have fallen by the wayside in favor of his hunger for power.

If AI's analysis of Sen. Garton's 36-year record on GLBT issues is missing something, please correct us for the sake of the record. The real problem is a matter of perception. Some people think because a politician meets with you, treats you politely and listens to what you have to say, that makes him a friend of your cause. Sen. Garton has been very good at doing that and nothing more for the GLBT community in our opinion. If he knows that is all he has to do to make him a "friend", why need he do more and risk offending someone; he never has anything to fear.

I learned long ago that politicians are far more likely to stand up and take notice of someone who is willing to strike a little fear in them than someone who simply wants to rub shoulders with them. Sen. Garton never feared Indiana's GLBT community as his record reflects. Call me cynical if you want, but with friends like Garton, who needs enemies?