[5] In January 2017, Representative Jim Lucas introduced a bill to remove the state's same-sex marriage ban and replace references to "husband and wife" with the gender-neutral term "spouses".
[10] In 2010, such a proposal passed the Indiana Senate in a 38–10 vote,[11] but the House of Representatives, which had a Democratic majority, took no action, failing even to schedule a hearing on the legislation.
In December 2012, Governor Mitch Daniels, without taking a position on the proposed amendment, said that business leaders had expressed concern that it would restrict their policies toward same-sex couples.
"[18] On December 4, the six Roman Catholic bishops of Indiana issued a statement that, without referencing the legislation, reiterated their position that marriage is "the intimate communion of life and love between one man and one woman.
A companion bill was also introduced that provided clarifying language directing that the proposed constitutional amendment would ban same-sex marriages and civil unions but not domestic partnerships.
[22] On January 27, the Indiana House voted 52–43, with 29 Democrats and 23 Republicans in favor, to remove the second sentence, which would have banned civil unions, from the amendment.
The judge ruled that restricting marriage to different-sex couples "promotes the state's interest in encouraging procreation to occur in a context where both biological parents are present to raise the child."
[34] On June 25, 2014, Judge Richard L. Young ruled with respect to the remaining plaintiffs in Baskin, as well as the cases of Fujii and Lee.
He found in favor of the plaintiff couples, granted them summary judgment and struck down Indiana's ban on same-sex marriage.
[39] On September 4, the Seventh Circuit, in a unanimous opinion authored by Judge Richard Posner, upheld the district court's decision.
[40] On September 9, 2014, Wisconsin (joint by Indiana) asked the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold their respective bans on same-sex marriage.
[44] Judge Young dismissed it for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction on June 25, 2014, because the only named defendant was Governor Pence, who cannot, he wrote, "issue executive decrees telling other elected officials how to do their jobs when it comes to laws affecting marriage.
[47] Judge Young issued his ruling in Bowling v. Pence on August 19, repeating the logic of his earlier decision in finding that the state's refusal to recognize same-sex marriages was unconstitutional.
Young noted that Pence, contrary to his earlier claims, had issued memos to state agencies instructing them to disregard the July 25 decision in Baskin.
Indiana statutes have yet to be modified to reflect legalization, with various unenforceable and void provisions still referring to marriage as being a heterosexual union.
According to the Associated Press, a House committee voted 9–1 in favor of the bill "after hearing from women who testified they were 15 or 16 when their parents forced them to marry men who had raped or molested them and then faced more abuse before being able to escape the relationship".
After Representative Matt Pierce introduced an amendment to remove the unconstitutional sections banning same-sex marriage, House Speaker Brian Bosma refused to call the bill to the floor.
[a] The bill was widely considered unconstitutional by political experts and advocates,[54][55] and failed to pass before the end of the legislative session in March 2024.
[57] While there are no records of same-sex marriages as understood from a Western perspective being performed in Native American cultures, there is evidence for identities and behaviours that may be placed on the LGBT spectrum.
Many of these cultures recognized two-spirit individuals who were born male but wore women's clothing and performed everyday household work and artistic handiwork which were regarded as belonging to the feminine sphere.
[58] Potawatomi society has traditionally recognized two-spirit individuals, known as mnedokwé (pronounced [mnədoˈkʷɛ], plural: mnedokwék),[59] who "sought out female company" from an early age, possessed the "work skills" of both sexes, "talked like women", and were regarded as "esteemed persons with special spiritual powers".