Jill Disis

jill.disis@indystar.com

Indianapolis residents Melody Layne and Tara Betterman each call Layne's daughter their own. But they're worried that a lack of legal protections — their marriage isn't recognized by Indiana — could tear their family apart in a crisis.

Rae Baskin and Esther Fuller have been a couple for 24 years. But the 78-year-old Fuller's recent medical scares — including breast cancer surgery and a broken hip — have forced the Whitestown residents to consider whether the state will recognize Baskin's legal control over Fuller's affairs.

Pamela Lee, a 19-year veteran of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, wants her partner, Candace Batten-Lee, to be recognized as her spouse and primary beneficiary. Though the couple wed in California last year, Lee's request in Indiana has been denied.

The couples face different obstacles, but their end goal is the same: to challenge the state's refusal to perform same-sex marriages or recognize gay unions legally performed in other states.

Their struggles are part of the story behind three of at least five such lawsuits that have been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana this month. Three of those came Friday, the day after the Indiana General Assembly ended its session.

Opponents of same-sex marriage say the lawsuits are part of a well-orchestrated attempt by gay-advocacy groups to use the courts to overturn laws promoting the union of one man and one woman.

"There's clearly an agenda to unravel marriage away from what it always has been, which is a special union between a man and a woman, into any relationship anyone chooses," said Micah Clark, the president of the American Family Association. "It's moved away from what society needs, and what children need, to what adults want now."

The state's suits join more than 50 others filed nationwide as part of a movement that took off last year, after a U.S. Supreme Court decision gave full federal recognition to legally married gay couples.

The latest filings also leave Indiana with more such lawsuits than any other state except Pennsylvania, which also has five.

"I've lived here my entire life. I love Indiana," said plaintiff Greg Hasty, who wants to marry his fiance, Christopher Vallero.

Hasty said his friends have told him to go elsewhere for a marriage license several times.

"For us, it just never made sense," he said. "We live here. We live in the community.

"We don't understand why we should go anywhere else when we love to be here."

Many of the couples named in the lawsuits said they knew they were adding to a growing national effort, but they said their reasons for challenging Indiana's law were personal.

Rob MacPherson and Steven Stolen, who have a 15-year-old daughter, don't need to get married again. They took care of that in a trip to California six years ago.

Though the federal government recognizes their marriage, Stolen said they are still denied benefits under Indiana law like joint home ownership and decision-making rights during medical emergencies — and have needed an attorney to draw up extensive documentation to help them around those barriers.

"Enough is enough," Stolen said. "Whether you've been together for seven years, eight years, two years or, in our case, 25 years — a lot of them in Indiana — it is time for Indiana to say, 'This isn't fair.'"

Ken Falk, the legal director of the ACLU of Indiana, said the civil rights organization's lawsuit — which has more than a dozen plaintiffs, including MacPherson and Stolen — allows them to tell a variety of stories.

"These are all people we would recognize as having the same life problems that everyone else has," Falk said. "It just so happens they're same-sex couples."

Plaintiff Midori Fujii, for example, isn't looking to get married again. But she still faces the challenges the current ban imposes.

When Fujii's wife, Kris Brittan, died from ovarian cancer in 2011, her California marriage was not recognized in Indiana. She was not allowed to make funeral arrangements, and state law required her to pay more than $300,000 in Indiana inheritance tax on the property Brittan left her.

If they were legally married, Fujii would have been exempt from those taxes.

"That's a significant burden to have to face going forward," said Sean Lemieux, an attorney working on Fujii's case, which is being led by the ACLU. "When you've spent your lives together saving and building assets and protecting yourself, to have that then go into taxes because your marriage is disrespected is not only emotionally insulting but financially harmful."

The five lawsuits come less than a month after the Indiana General Assembly decided to change and thus delay a proposal that would have allowed voters to decide whether to amend the state's constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

As introduced, House Joint Resolution 3 also would have banned recognition of civil unions, but lawmakers decided to strip that provision. The move angered many social conservatives because it effectively delayed a proposed public referendum on the issue until at least 2016.

As the legislature wrapped up its business for this session, the same-sex marriage lawsuits began pouring in — prompting questions about the timing of the court cases.

Representatives from Lambda Legal, a firm that lobbies for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and that filed a federal lawsuit in Indiana on Monday, stayed silent on their strategy.

But a private law firm said its decision to wait until Friday to file a lawsuit was in part politically motivated.

"By request of various HJR-3 opposition groups, our firm waited until today to file the federal suit to ensure the Indiana General Assembly would be foreclosed from inserting the second sentence of the proposed constitutional amendment back into the bill, thus putting it on the ballot this fall," representatives from the Indianapolis-based Richard Mann law office wrote in a statement.

In a statement released Thursday, Attorney General Greg Zoeller said he intended to defend Indiana's marriage definition statute.

"When plaintiffs who disagree with an Indiana statute file a challenge in court, I have a duty as Indiana's Attorney General to defend our state and the statute the Legislature passed to the best of my skill and ability — and will do so here, both now and on any appeal," Zoeller said.

It's unclear how the cases will unfold in Indiana — though the state's lack of such a constitutional amendment could leave it open to more of these types of challenges, said Clark, the head of the American Family Association.

"We expected this might happen when the legislature was over or after they decided on the marriage amendment," Clark said Thursday. "Had the legislature passed HJR-3 as originally filed and had this been on the ballot this fall, I don't think these lawsuits would have been filed."

Falk, the ACLU lawyer, said he disagrees, adding that their lawsuit would have been filed regardless of any action taken by the General Assembly.

"This is based on the federal constitution," Falk said. "The federal constitution trumps Indiana law. It trumps the Indiana constitution."

Since December, federal courts have struck down state laws in Illinois, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Virginia, Tennessee, Texas and Utah banning same-sex marriages or prohibiting the recognition of similar unions performed in the more than 15 states where they are legal.

Star reporter Tim Evans contributed to this story.

Call Star reporter Jill Disis at (317) 444-6137. Follow her on Twitter: @jdisis.

Five lawsuits

• Bowling, Bowling and Bruner v. Pence, et al: In this lawsuit filed by a private law firm Friday, two of the plaintiffs, who were married in Iowa but live in Indianapolis, want state recognition of their marriage.

• Lee, et al. v. Pence, et al: Filed by Indiana Equality Action, a pro-LGBT coalition, on Friday, this suit seeks marriage rights and benefits for public employees.

• Fujii, et al. v. Pence, et al.: Filed by the ACLU of Indiana on Friday, plaintiffs include a widow who claims she was forced to pay inheritance tax on her dead wife's property because they were not legally married in Indiana.

• Baskin, et al. v. Bogan, et al. : Filed by Lambda Legal, a pro-LGBT organization, on Monday, this suit names three couples, including two women, one of whom is 78, who claim the state's same-sex marriage ban creates a challenge for their end-of-life health care plans.

• Love, et al. v. Pence, et al.: Filed by a private firm on March 7, this names four Indiana same-sex couples as plaintiffs, who either want to be married in Indiana or who want their marriages performed elsewhere legally recognized here.

— Jill Disis