The Online Reflector

Going into their freshman year at Roncalli High School, a Catholic school, Anna, resident director of East Hall, and her wife, Beth, had no clue they were gay.

“I had a boyfriend at the time,” Beth said with a laugh. “Poor guy; I broke his heart.”

Anna’s mother is gay, so she knew about it and feared the social consequences that it came along with. Beth, however, had never even thought of it.

“I was confused,” Beth said. “I didn’t know anything about lesbians. I didn’t know what one was, if you turned lesbian or if you were always that way.”

Despite that, after a couple years of being friends, their junior year they started to develop feelings for each other. They had their first date on Feb. 2, 2002 and saw “A Walk to Remember” followed with dinner at Chili’s.
The couple describes both of their families as being accepting when they came out.

“My dad was accepting of us, but first had this notion that what we do in our private life was to stay at home,” Anna said. “We had to just let him know that we were making a commitment to each other and we weren’t going to hide who we are. It has been a challenge for him to broaden his horizons, but he has definitely risen to that challenge.”

Beth’s dad also had an opinion. When she called him to tell him that she was gay he said, “Well, at least you’re not a Democrat.”

Both said that their friends were accepting for the most part. The couple describes how most of their friends had figured it out on their own.

In 2008, the couple was ready to get married. They had two weddings, one held at the Rathskeller in downtown Indianapolis and the other in Cape Cod, Mass. The first wedding on Oct.10 at the Rathskeller was very traditional and was before approximately 160 people.

This was the wedding that Beth had wanted. The latter wedding was very small. It was just the two of them and the officiator on a beach. Most of their families showed up to their traditional-style wedding.

“Our grandmas had this look on their face like ‘What is happening? What am I doing here?’” Beth said. “But after the wedding, our families were very supportive. Everyone was crying, my grandma hugged me, your [Anna’s] grandma strangled you.”

Although their marriage is legal in Massachusetts, it is not legal in the state of Indiana, which is why they had to get themselves as legally protected as they can be. Their last names are legally changed to be Droste-Glowinski. They have a will with each other’s names on it. They said getting legally protected as a couple is very hard and an expensive process, but one of the upmost importance.

“Everything is a little bit harder,” Anna said. “But it’s worth it.”
Anna said that she has never really had a problem with anyone discriminating against her on campus. The University of Indianapolis is an equal opportunist. Anna said that to call working in student affairs a liberal job would be a conservative way to put it.

Anna and Beth both describe fear and ignorance as the leading factors in why gays are discriminated against and why gay couples aren’t given all the rights of a heterosexual couple. They believe that people should be educated and more open to diversity.

“Just by living in the dorms and letting people see us as a couple, we are helping educate them that we aren’t different from anyone else,” Anna said. “We fight about the same thing normal couples fight about. We have a dog; people like our dog.”

“Oh gay people can have dogs too?” Beth chimed in sarcastically. “Maybe they aren’t that different from us.”

Beth and Anna have now been together for eight and a half years and do have plans to start a family that includes children. They hope that society will become more and more accepting and educated on homosexuality.

“We’ve come a long way. Things are definitely different than they were even 20 years ago,” Anna said. “But we definitely still have a long way to go.”