Senator Miller A No Show At Indiana's Witch Hunt

Senator Pat Miller was a no-show at Irvington’s annual Halloween fest today, an event she co-sponsors every year. Rock Indiana’s Pepper Partin staged her “Indiana’s Witch Hunt” protest at the Irvington Fest today to educate voters in Miller’s district about the radical religious agenda Miller has been pursuing as the area’s state senator, a post she has held for more than 20 years. Rock Indiana is urging Miller’s constituents to vote her out of office in the next election.

Partin and a handful of friendly supporters peacefully held up signs and distributed literature explaining “Indiana’s Witch Hunt.” Partin was disappointed that several Irvington area businesses had expressed disapproval of Rock Indiana’s protest during pre-media coverage of the event. Unfounded rumors that the event would be marred for families and small children because of a homosexual presence, and that the protest might be something other than peaceful, also disappointed Partin. But she was extremely pleased by the response she received from many passer-bys at the fest. With few exceptions, Partin’s protest was well-received by Miller’s constituents, many of whom were unfamiliar with her views.

The literature distributed by Rock Indiana compared the Salem, Massachusetts witch trials of the late 1600s, which Rock Indiana asserts were based on “ignorance, fear and Puritan Christianity.” The group said: “Today a similar but more subdued hysteria is sweeping Indiana. Many legislators want Hoosiers to believe that at the heart of the state’s ills is moral deviancy such as premarital sex, serial marriage, same sex unions and unmarried persons seeking to artificially conceive children. Legislators such as Senator Miller propose and vote in favor of primitive, unconstitutional legislation that discriminates against people who do not share her beliefs. Like Salem’s hysteria, fear, ignorance and zealotry are at the heart of this modern day witch hunt.”

Rock Indiana gave several examples of Miller’s religious zealotry to her constituents, including:

• Her sponsorship of an “Orwellian authorized reproduction bill” that would make it illegal for unmarried persons to artificially conceive a child;


• Her work as Executive Director of the United Methodist Church’s radical “Confessing Movement” sect;


• Her votes for Indiana’s Defense of Marriage Act and constitutional amendment, both of which prohibit same sex marriages; and


• Her sponsorship of legislation to deny unmarried couples domestic partner benefits.

Rock Indiana also gives us a sampling of some quotes from Senator Miller while discussing her religious legislative agenda:

• “To begin with, marriage is between one man and one woman and anything else is not acceptable. This just reinforces that these relationships are not appropriate.”


• “We did want to address the issue of whether or not the law should allow should allow single people to be parents.”


• “I think we do a disservice when we say, “Sin’s okay. You do whatever you want.”


• “Yes, Yes, I do [believe marriage should be a requirement for motherhood].”


• “I am not a religious zealot.”

Despite Miller’s protest that she is not a religious zealot, Rock Indiana does draw attention to her full-time participation as executive director of the Confessing Movement sect of the United Methodist Church, a fundamentalist movement within the church to squelch the “reigning virtue of tolerance” as Rock Indiana describes it. At the heart of the Confessing Movement is an effort to reject the church’s acceptance of homosexuality, which the sect declares is “incompatible with Christian teaching." Miller’s sect compares homosexuality to idolatry. According to Miller’s sect, “just as idolatry brings dishonor to God, so homosexual behavior brings dishonor to the body created for the union of male and female in marriage.”

The Confessing Movement holds fast to the tenets of “fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness.” It is determined to block any recognition of same sex unions by the church, and has challenged the church to enforce fundamentalist Christian doctrine on matters of sex and marriage. In the past, the group has unsuccessfully sought to conduct a form of a inquisition against clergy within the church who fail to uphold traditional church doctrine on matters such as homosexuality and marriage and are promoting a “pro-gay agenda”.

Miller’s deep involvement in the Confessing Movement has been largely ignored by the mainstream media. If you look at the core mission of the Confessing Movement, you quickly learn that Miller is pursing a radical religious agenda through the legislative process to enforce Christian fundamentalist doctrine she has so far not succeeded in imposing on her own church. Yes, she is legislating her views of morality and religion. And yes, she is a religious zealot.