ON THE AVENUES: The Hoosier Stain.

ON THE AVENUES: The Hoosier Stain.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

The story goes that Groucho Marx was standing in line at a famous Hollywood restaurant when he turned to a woman and asked, “Are you alone?”

“Why, yes I am,” came her flattered response.

“Then there must be something terribly wrong with you,” shrugged the comedian before turning away.

Groucho was male, and leering older codgers indeed can be scary, even to other men. We don’t know the woman’s ethnicity or political affiliation, and it’s worth remembering there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with being alone. The episode might well be apocryphal; after all, why would a world-famous movie star be required to wait in line – unless it was his Jewishness?

However, what we DO know is that yesterday, the state of Illinois made national headlines.

CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation Wednesday allowing same-sex weddings starting this summer, making President Barack Obama's home state the 16th overall — and largest in the nation's heartland — to legalize gay marriage.

As citizens in Illinois celebrated this latest in a growing series of coming out parties, a cinematic tableau began developing in my mind. From street-level views of jubilant Illini, the scene dissolves into the relative quiet of the New Albany city council chamber, where a resolution in opposition to HJR-6 is scheduled for hearing tonight.

House Joint Resolution 6 is a proposed amendment to the Indiana Constitution which states: "Only marriage between one(1) man and one(1) woman will be valid or recognized as a marriage in Indiana. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized."

If enacted, House Joint Resolution 6 would amend the Constitution of the State of Indiana to do two things: 1) Prohibit any future legislators from passing a law that would allow same-sex couples to legally marry. 2) prohibit any future legislators from enacting a law that would allow legal protections for any unmarried relationships that are similar to marriage, such as civil unions or domestic partnerships.

Indiana law already prohibits same sex marriage. HJR6 makes it permanent.

In the imagined screenplay, I look up from my seat in the peanut gallery and notice a council person reading his meeting agenda. His body language and furrowed countenance testify to discomfiture and cognitive dissonance – alas, not for the first time – and as a good Samaritan, I resolve to come to his assistance.

I rise and stride purposefully to his side.

“Are you troubled by these incessant reminders of same sex marriage, LGBT issues and HJR-6, and feel resentful that yet again, you’re being asked to provide local guidance on an issue that’s outside your presumed bailiwick?”

“Why, yes I am,” comes his relieved response.

“Then there must be something terribly wrong with you,” I shrug, before turning away.

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Just two days ago, the Purdue University Senate stopped squirming, pulled on its boots and got down to basics, adopting a resolution opposing HJR-6.

Surely it’s because they grasp that if the university’s big cheese-tain Mitch Daniels were to require of Purdue researchers the same commitment to hidebound voodoo ideology demanded of adherence to HJR-6, they’d rightly come to the conclusion, arguably quite belated, that Daniels belongs in a looney bin, and rush forward with strength and resolve to save Hoosier agriculture from a posturing pint-sized Lysenko.

So it is that rarely in this pot-bellied skeptic’s life has it been any better than this.

As an attitudinal tsunami of societal evolution approaches, Indiana Republicans who’ve long since forgotten the lessons of freedom embodied by the American Civil War gaze first at their shoes, then around the hall of mirrors they persist inhabiting, and start making tepid gurgling sounds about the will of the people. What they need most is a swift kick in the balls by Abraham Lincoln.

Then, one pleasant November morning, you arise to the usual espresso and kippers. Hearing a commotion outside, you part the curtains and see numerous visitors of the sort who’d customarily be told to get the hell off your porch: Multi-denominational interfaith representatives, stuffed shirt Ken dolls from Fortune 500 companies, and best of all, those shameless, clucking, congenital fluffers of our douchebag gilded-age oligarchs … all standing by the bushes, holding hands, singing Kumbaya, and insisting that the needs of economic development march hand in hand with bountiful diversity and the expansion of human rights and freedoms.

Granted, living wages seldom are discussed in this context, but we’ll overlook it for now.

They sing, you blink. It’s time to make another espresso, dig out the seismograph from its storage space in the cabinet behind the toilet paper and find a comfy hammock. Opposing HJR-6 is a necessary, fair and decent act – but it’s a lot more fun when the usual suspects switch sides.

We now return to our prevaricating council person, as oft-times before seeking to dodge voting on a resolution owing to some smugly contorted bit of Rococo subterfuge, when all he’s really doing is ducking his responsibility as a human being, because these matters of basic fairness and human dignity, while nagging, are hardly minor.

You look at him, and you repeat after Bono: “Am I bugging you? I don't mean to bug ya.”

And, of course, you go right ahead, bugging him.

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Recently I was asked, and I paraphrase: Roger, why must you be so confrontational and edgy about this matter? It doesn’t affect you. You’re already married, and to a woman.

It’s because I drink locally but think globally.

It’s because there is reality outside my immediate vicinity.

It’s because I care deeply about human rights, and believe we all deserve the same treatment.

It’s because the promise of the historic American experiment was not intended to be limited to white straight “normal” folks who read just one version of a religious text.

It’s because for so long as human rights and freedoms are restricted owing to the clinging vestiges of any type of dominant caste, we all are diminished as a result.

And it’s because sometimes, if you’re not metaphorically shaken by your dainty oblivious buttoned-down lapels and forcibly fed some genuine truth, you have this tendency to lose focus.

That’s why.