Republican State Senator Blames GOP Leaders For Anti-Gay Marriage Push's Failure

Republican State Senator Blames GOP Leaders For Big Failure

State Sen. Mike Delph, long a staunch opponent of gay marriage, today announced that he would vote against a watered-down version of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

The Carmel Republican said he would prefer that the measure be moved back to the amendment stage so a second sentence banning civil unions could be restored and the measure could go to voters in November.

"For my faith and plain-spokenness, I make no apologies," Delph said Monday at a Statehouse news conference.

The Senate declined to restore the second sentence on Thursday and there was no indication a majority wanted to reverse the process. Without restoring the second sentence, the earliest the amendment could go to voters would be in 2016.

Delph blamed Senate GOP leaders for the second sentence's failure.

After failing to get his fellow GOP lawmakers to go along with his effort to also ban civil unions last week, Delph lit up Twitter, firing off more than 200 tweets within 18 hours, verbally sparring with opponents and retweeting his backers.

During the Twitter blast Delph revealed he has a gay brother and they remain close.

The online onslaught continued throughout weekend as Delph defended his conservative politics and took shots at critics.

To see Delph's latest tweets, find him on Twitter @MikeDelph. ___

(c)2014 The Indianapolis Star

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Distributed by MCT Information Services

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