Topeka ? Supporters of amending the Kansas Constitution to ban same-sex marriage fired up a legislative steamroller in the Senate. Its engine is idling for the moment, though, with the decision by House leaders to hold public hearings on the issue.

Those leaders still expect a statewide election on the amendment April 5. Chances appear remote that opponents of the measure, which also would prohibit civil unions for gay couples, can repeat last year’s achievement and block the amendment from going before voters.

But putting off the vote, initially scheduled for last week, spooks supporters — and with good reason.

Delay helps the measure’s opponents, giving them time to build a case that it goes far beyond banning gay marriage or civil unions.

“Once people get a good look at what the language is, it will lose support,” said Tom Witt, field director for Equality Kansas, a Wichita group opposing the amendment.

The Senate adopted the proposed amendment, 28-11, only four days into the legislative session, without public hearings or a committee review. Its GOP leaders wanted to meet a Feb. 11 deadline to get the measure on the ballot in April.

Amending the constitution requires two-thirds majorities in both chambers, 27 votes in the 40-member Senate and 84 in the 125-member House, then approval by a simple majority of voters.

Distrust of courts

Supporters assume voters will approve the proposed amendment, making the Legislature the obstacle. Last year, voters in 13 other states, including Missouri and Oklahoma, added same-sex marriage bans to their constitutions.

“We felt it needed to be on the ballot this past November,” said the Rev. Joe Wright, senior pastor at Wichita’s Central Christian Church.

The proposed amendment’s first section would restate a policy in Kansas law since 1867, that only marriages between one man and one woman are valid.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and some legislators have said a constitutional amendment isn’t necessary.

But supporters fear state courts will overturn the policy, and they see a Kansas Supreme Court decision in December striking down the state’s death penalty law as evidence that the court has moved to the left.

“We don’t trust the judiciary,” said the Rev. Terry Fox, senior pastor at Wichita’s Immanuel Baptist Church.

The debate is over the amendment’s second section: “No relationship, other than a marriage, shall be recognized by the state as entitling the parties to the rights or incidents of marriage.”

Supporters acknowledge the language will prevent the state from recognizing civil unions for gay couples, which they view as marriage under a different name. Fox said supporters also don’t want to see taxpayer-supported entities providing domestic partner benefits.

Opponents argue the amendment is much broader — perhaps by design.

“What’s a benefit of marriage?” Witt said. “I can list off a few obvious ones, but there are hundreds, if not thousands, of ones that are not so obvious.”

In Ohio, attorneys in at least two Cleveland-area cases are trying to use that state’s amendment to keep clients from being convicted of domestic battery, with the state’s anti-abuse law covering people living as spouses. The same issue has arisen in Utah.

Discrimination fears

Witt worries how an amendment in Kansas could affect gay couples in everyday life.

For example will gay parents have trouble, as Witt said he once did, persuading school officials to allow partners to pick up their children? Will the amendment give hospital officials license to prevent one partner from visiting another?

“Every petty bigot with a badge or some authority who doesn’t like somebody will say, ‘You’re not married,”‘ he said.

The amendment’s supporters contend such fears are unfounded and suggest opponents raise such issues to cloud the debate.

And Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, said House members already know how they’ll vote.

Still, both sides remember last year, when an amendment seemed headed for adoption in March but failed in the House in May.

“We have to be very, very careful not to lose the opportunity to let Kansans vote on this,” Fox said.