Indiana lawmakers delay vote on marriage equality ban

Lawmakers will not take up a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriages this year, leaders of the Republican-dominated Indiana General Assembly said Thursday. The legislature will wait on same-sex marriage amendment until 2014, state Senate President Pro Tem David Long and House Speaker Brian Bosma said. The two said they wanted to see how the U.S. Supreme Court would rule on the issue this summer on the legality of California's similar constitutional amendment and a federal law that denies benefits to same-sex couples. Indiana already is one of 37 states, either in state law or a constitutional amendment, that specify marriages must be between a man and a woman. Nine states and the District of Columbia permit same-sex marriage.