Tully: Imagine if lawmakers tried to unite Indiana

What if the state legislature gathered each year with a core mission: To do things that would make Indiana stronger, but also things that could actually bring the state's people closer together?

It feels ridiculous to even write that sentence, or to consider the notion. After all, year after year Statehouse Republicans insist on peppering the legislative agenda with wedge issues certain to drive Hoosiers further apart.

It happened again this session, of course, with a religious freedom bill that Gov. Mike Pence signed into law Thursday. If possible, this bill has divided Indiana even more bitterly than the same-sex marriage battle Republicans waged last year.

A lot has been said about the religious freedom bill. It's attracted Indiana unfortunate attention from coast to coast. Personally, no other column I have ever written has come close to generating the number of emails that followed one I wrote about this issue on Tuesday.

It appears the fallout for Indiana will be significant. A major corporation with deep Indiana ties said it would cease travel here. The city's biggest and most beloved convention announced it would consider the legislation when deciding whether to continue coming to Indianapolis. The NCAA said the law could impact its future decisions. Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard, a Republican, protested the measure, saying it ran counter to the welcoming place Indy tries to be.

Plenty of people, of course, supported the bill. But many of them sought to downplay its importance in recent days. Many backers suggested it would have little impact. One radio host, meantime, had me on his show Wednesday morning and argued that a lawsuit involving a bakery in Washington state somehow made the bill a necessity in Indiana. The governor insisted on signing the bill in private, surrounded by like-minded supporters.

The downplaying. The hiding. The lack of a coherent rationale for the bill. It all underscored the ridiculousness and destructiveness of waging a bitter and divisive public battle over the issue. The message this bill sends is its worst attribute.

And it made me wonder: What if our lawmakers arrived in town each January and took an oath to spend the following months trying to bring Hoosiers together? What if they looked for the common ground that is within us? What if they stared out at our geographically fractured state, at the clear differences between our urban, suburban and rural areas, and asked what could bring Indiana together? What if, along with fiscal impact statements that accompany bills, legislation was also judged on whether it would make us a more connected state?

I know, keep dreaming.

And, yes, I am so disappointed that my state's leaders have pushed discrimination into law that my column on Tuesday hardly attempted to bring people together. I'm sorry, but when elected leaders take steps that can truly hurt and divide my state, and that can send harmful messages to thousands of people young and old, my blood boils so hot that it thins.

It doesn't have to be this way.

I sometimes wonder if some lawmakers understand the honor they've been granted. Their fellow citizens have given them the opportunity to shape a state's laws, future and priorities. Yet many seem to treat this honor like a license to divide.

Here is the bottom line: Indiana is a great state. But it has a mountain of challenges and it lacks one unifying force, that thing that could transcend politics and unite people of different regions. This is a state in which many people have closer ties to Chicago, Cincinnati and Louisville than to Indianapolis. We are a state that doesn't always come together. Too often, we simply do not understand one another.

That's our challenge, to understand here in Central Indiana that Evansville, Gary and Milan are as important to us as Broad Ripple, Carmel and Greenwood. And vice versa.

It's a hard message to sell. It is even harder to sell when you have a legislature — in this case, a Republican-controlled legislature — that continues to pit regions and communities against each other, and that plays host to an annual display of divisiveness and intolerance known as the legislative session.

I don't understand what drives this behavior. But I do know that it doesn't have to be this way.

You can reach me at matthew.tully@indystar.com or at Twitter.con/matthewltully.