The Freedom Indiana coalition against an amendment to the state constitution to ban gay marriage gained two more educational institutions Monday with DePauw University and Wabash College.
Megan Robertson, the campaign manager for Freedom Indiana, just happened to be on campus Monday at the first college to join the coalition, Indiana University. She sat with a representative from manufacturer Cummins and IU’s lead attorney on a panel at the Maurer Law School in Bloomington, laying out the reasons for opposing an amendment to the Indiana Constitution — and explaining why there is bipartisan opposition to it.
Institutions such as Cummins and IU, which provide domestic partner benefits to their employees, are just as scared by the legislation’s wording that would invalidate partnerships “substantially similar” to marriage, a step beyond the state’s current statute against same-sex marriages. With DePauw and IU, critics might be able to define the support for Freedom Indiana as being only from liberal academia, according to Jackie Simmons, IU vice president and general counsel. But Robertson drew a few laughs from the audience when pointing out that Wabash isn’t regarded as a left-wing haven.
What allowed IU to take a public stance on the issue of a same-sex marriage amendment this time, rather than the more behind-the-scenes approach the university has taken previously, was what the university saw as a broad coalition beginning to emerge on the issue, Simmons said.
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