Cindy and Amy

Love. It all comes back to love.

Cindy had always known that she was attracted to women, and when she came to college at Indiana University, she was lucky to meet Donna, the first love of her life. They were together for 20 years before Donna was diagnosed with cancer in 1993.

As their partnership was not recognized by the state or the University, Cindy was unable to use her Family and Medical Leave Act time to care for Donna, but her supervisor found a way for her to use it for her own sake. It allowed her and Donna to spend the final two years together, taking vacations and caring for each other until Donna's death in 1995.

Still heartbroken and grieving, Cindy was only allowed two hours off from her day job before she was expected to return to work, as same-sex relationships were not recognized as equal.

Recently elected to the IU Board of Trustees, she sat in her first meeting as the news began to spread. Slowly, person after person came to her to pay their respects: "there was a whole receiving line! It was a very public coming out for everyone who didn't know I was gay at the time."

It was a very public coming out for everyone who didn't know I was gay at the time.

Not too long afterwards, she met Amy. They had a different story than many of their friends—they met at church! Cindy, a recent widow, was looking for community, and Amy had returned to Bloomington and wanted to reconnect to what she referred to as “the female community.” In a twist of fate or destiny, they both sang in the chorus at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Bloomington, Indiana.

They met and fell in love in a few short years, and then had an 'illegal' ceremony in 2001, before even Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in 2004: "That was our big splashy wedding... we hired lesbian caterers, lesbian DJs, a lesbian minister and rented out a softball field—just the whole thing—and invited everyone... That's when we got our wedding rings, that's when we did everything…it just wasn't legal!"

This became one of the significant dates in their relationship:

"Well, you know, being gay people... you have multiple dates, I need a chart—the date we met, the date we moved in together, the date of our illegal wedding, the date of our legal one...but we celebrate the first one, because that is the gift of years."

Their legal marriage didn’t come around until 2013 when they were visiting Rehoboth Beach in Delaware and learned that the state had just changed their laws that week. They got 'legally' married on the beach, before "God and the IRS." They invited no one, it was just for them.

Neither Cindy nor Amy were the most political people—Cindy describes them as the type to work quietly within institutions to bring about change. In 1995 or '96 she started introducing resolutions for domestic benefits and then slowly moving people over to her side until federal and state laws caught up. By the fall of 2001, Cindy and others had convinced enough people at the school to support the resolution, and they welcomed gay faculty and staff members. It was not perfect: "just to get domestic partnership—not a legal wedding—we had to show shared names on a lease, a shared bank account and so much more…but it was something.”

The Supreme Court decision meant that they were fully out, fully accepted by everyone—but they still had to work through things together: "the three challenges for every couple are going on trips together, remodeling a home together, getting through the holiday together... if you can get through those three challenges, I think you can get through anything"

Reflecting on her life, her decades of work and experience and where she is now compared to where she was in the 1980's and earlier, she comments:

"That Cindy was closeted, was scared, was frightened, was pessimistic, and thought the world couldn't handle gay people. This Cindy is like 'I'm gay! Come on! It's good to be gay! We're the people that make the world more beautiful, that make life more beautiful!’"

"Love. It all comes back to love."