Katie Blair and Megan Robertson talk about how their opposing political parties affects their relationship, during a date at Tinker Street. Robertson, a Republican, and Blair, a Democrat, are engaged to be married in November.
Jenna Watson/IndyStar

“Who does she think she is?” Katie Blair sputtered.

How, she ranted to her friends, could a Republican possibly be the state’s leading advocate for gays and lesbians?

It was 2013, and GOP strategist Megan Robertson was roiling both Democrats and Republicans as she headed Freedom Indiana’s battle to defeat a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

Though openly gay, Robertson’s career highlights included getting same-sex marriage opponents elected to Congress, organizing rallies for Sarah Palin and working for the state Republican Party, which denounced same-sex marriages.

And now she was in charge of changing the minds of those very people?

Blair, a liberal activist, fumed.

“She might be running it,” Blair sniped, “but she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

Blair was collaborating with Freedom Indiana as a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana. One of her mentors urged her to get to know Robertson.

She’s really going out on a limb to do important work, the mentor said.

Yeah, yeah, Blair said. Whatever.

What she couldn’t know then, before they ever fell in love, was that their work together would be fighting for their future marriage.

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It’s silly, really, how today’s political rage and rancor would lead many to believe that bipartisanship is impossible — in legislatures and in love.

People spit out party names like dirty words. Behind memes and fake news stories, political beliefs are cast as good versus evil, and anyone who dares to disagree is clearly a bigot!

Maybe that’s why liberal advocates seemed convinced that Robertson was some kind of “awful Republican monster” — her own words — when she took up the same-sex marriage fight.

Such as when she took her staff out for drinks: They called it “mandatory fun.”

“I thought I was being nice,” Robertson said, “but I’m a Republican, so nothing I did was considered nice.”

Slowly, however, they found out she was, in fact, as human as they were. They discovered her dry humor, unshakable loyalty and industrious work ethic. They uncovered her undying devotion for the Chicago Bears and her uncanny talent for karaoke rap songs. They relished in her love for winning campaigns.

For Robertson, too, this was unlike any political battle she had led before. This was a movement. It couldn’t be won with just logic and facts. She had to adapt her blunt, all-business style to touchy-feely storytelling. To win this campaign was to win hearts and minds.

And hers was one of the stories to be told. Here was a proven Republican, the public face of the movement, devoted to her party even as some in it rejected her for her sexual orientation or felt she shouldn’t have the same marriage rights that they did.

Her leadership of Freedom Indiana was a strategic stunner. She made same-sex marriage in Indiana — and later, civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Hoosiers — into a bipartisan issue by leveraging her contacts and influence in the GOP. It reshuffled the deck for future political advances on a social issue that seemed tough to move in a conservative state.

But it was also considered an enormous risk to her professional career — not to mention her high personal stakes in the marriage battle. Websites, newspaper front pages and TV reports across the state blared her status as a gay Republican campaigning for same-sex marriage rights.

Some Republicans joined her in saying the tide of social progress demanded the recognition of same-sex marriages — or, at least, the party should stick to government and business issues.

Still, politicians she knew stood up to say they didn’t approve of her life. Volunteers she had considered friends refused to work with her anymore. People made snide remarks that they knew would make their way back to her.

In the eyes of many Republicans, Robertson slipped in esteem. Some saw her social advocacy as treachery, venturing too far outside the party lines.

But one quirky Democrat with a penchant for cat-print dresses and cat-eye glasses started to see Robertson as a feisty Republican woman, brilliant and brave for standing up for what she believed in.

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