INDIANAPOLIS– Months after a bruising fight over gay marriage in the Indiana legislature, newly filed lobbying reports show the coalition opposing a constitutional ban outspent conservative supporters by double.
Freedom Indiana – which fought limiting marriage in the state constitution – spent more than $109,000 on lobbying efforts between Nov. 1 and April 30.
In comparison, five key entities supporting traditional marriage between one man and one woman spent a collective $54,000 during the same period.
Reports were due May 31 at the Indiana Lobby Registration Commission, though it took several weeks for them to be placed online.
“There's no doubt that we were heavily outspent by outside groups here and out of state, and by corporations who did not want to allow the people of Indiana to vote on the future of marriage in a ballot referendum,” said Micah Clark, executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana.
“We always believed that the future of marriage belonged in the hands of Hoosier voters, not the courts, not the activists and not Hollywood,” he said.
“Unfortunately, the big corporate money and mobilized homosexual activists prevented this from happening.”
Indiana state law already prohibits gay marriage. But legislators were considering a move to put the same restriction in the Indiana Constitution.