Brian Bosma = Eric Miller

House Speaker Brian Bosma confirms that his platform for a House GOP majority in Indiana is the platform of Eric Miller. The other day he and his colleagues were touting an education plan that asked taxpayers to finance private, religious schools. Today, he picks up the anti-immigrant mantra. And in a couple of days, he will be proclaiming that a constitutional ban on gay marriages is the answer to protecting traditional marriages. If former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson weren't burning in hell, he would be tipping his hood and burning crosses in support of Bosma's determination to turn the House Chambers into a Klonvocation.

Bosma's anti-immigrant plan targets only the immigrants and not Indiana employers who lure them here with the promise of jobs. End state benefits, give state police immigration authority exercised by federal authorities, require local law enforcement to notify federal authorities of undocumented aliens and stiffen penalties on false IDs. That's Bosma's plan. His Democratic counterpart, Rep. Pat Bauer, says that a crackdown on employers is the only effective way of controlling illegal immigration. "If you don't cut off the profit motive in this, you cannot cut off illegal immigration," reports the Star. Bosma's plan imposes no penalities on employers (i.e., his campaign contributors). Bosma and his colleagues want to leave it to the feds to handle violations by employers.

So there you have it folks. The choice is clear. Re-elect a House Republican majority in the State House and you get a sectarian-run institution, which is committed to stripping gays and immigrants of basic rights. Elect a Democratic majority and you will return to the Speakership Pat Bauer, who doesn't particularly like Eric Miller and his agenda, probably won't allow any anti-immigrant measures to go anywhere and probably won't allow an amendment to write discrimination into the constitution to go before the state's voters. He will also probably do everything humanly possible to be a thorn in the side of Gov. Mitch Daniels and serve as a roadblock to progress on other fronts. But given the two choices, I choose the latter. A big-time loss at the State House is exactly what the Indiana Republican Party needs to give it some incentive to return to its roots as the Party of Lincoln.