Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Company on
Wednesday endorsed a nascent campaign to defeat a proposed gay
marriage ban in Indiana.
Rob Smith, senior director of corporate responsibility at Eli
Lilly, joined roughly 200 people at a rally in downtown Indianapolis
to kick off the Freedom
Indiana campaign.
Republican lawmakers, including Governor Mike Pence, are pushing
for a 2014 referendum on House Joint Resolution 6 (HJR-6), a
constitutional amendment which would define marriage as a
heterosexual union and prohibit civil unions as an alternative to
marriage.
“HJR-6 is bad for business and bad for the state of Indiana,”
Smith told the crowd. “We take our commitment to corporate
citizenship very seriously at Lilly. We care very deeply about the
state of Indiana, the state that we call home. And as we think about
our business in the pharmaceutical industry we are trying to tackle
some of the most difficult, complex health challenges known to
mankind. And in that effort we have to recruit and retain a diverse
workforce consisting of the best and brightest from around the world.
Those efforts are made much more difficult when we have things like
HJR-6 contemplated. Putting HJR-6 into our state's most important
legal document presents a barrier to us in recruiting and retaining
that great talent.”
The proposed amendment sailed through the Republican-controlled
General Assembly in 2011. A second vote needed before it can go to
the ballot box is expected to take place next year.
Soon after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Defense of
Marriage Act (DOMA) in June, Pence reaffirmed his commitment to the
amendment, saying that he was “confident that Hoosiers will
reaffirm our commitment to traditional marriage and will consider
this important question with civility and respect for the values and
dignity of all of the people of our state.”
A December, 2012 WISH-TV/Ball State University Hoosier Survey
found only 38 percent of respondents support the amendment.
(Related: Indiana:
Majority oppose proposed gay marriage ban.)