\Support Diversity"" pins and Action Wisconsin T-shirts colored the Union Theater Wednesday night as two prominent leaders, Evan Wolfson and Glenn Stanton, had a debate about the controversial issue of gay marriage.
Wolfson and Stanton, nationally renowned speakers on the topic, have coincidently both written separate books with the title, ""Why Marriage Matters."" It is, however, probably one of the only things these different men have in common.
Wolfson is the executive director of Freedom to Marry, a national partnership of gays and allies working on marriage equality throughout the country. He also appeared before the Supreme Court in Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale case. In 2004, he was named one of ""the 100 most influential people in the world"" by Time magazine.
Stanton is the vice president and director of social research and cultural affairs for Focus on the Family, a Christian organization that works to uphold traditional definitions of family.
Wolfson spoke in favor of gay marriage and against the proposed amendment in the Wisconsin legislature to ban gay marriage. He said the amendment is important because it affects thousands of people and ""is not a freebie vote about how [the legislature] feel about gays in Massachusetts, but it's about how Wisconsin treats families here.""
The Family Research Institute of Wisconsin is the group responsible for bringing Stanton to UW-Madison to speak against gay marriage.
Julia Appling, the group's executive director asked, ""If we open [marriage] up to include people of the same sex, where do we draw the line? And how do we draw the line?""
Stanton started the debate by saying marriage is a universal institution that, up until the last ""milliseconds of humanity,"" has remained between females and men all over the world.
When Wolfson spoke, he said that denying the gay community of Wisconsin to marry may hurt families all over the state and that this is ""harmful, hurtful and wrong."" He called for the government to allow gay marriage and civil unions and give everyone equal rights.
Though many LGBT students attended, many students present were simply curious. Anika Lautenbach, a freshman at UW- Madison said, ""I've never been to a formal debate on the subject [of gay marriage] and I wanted to hear both sides from people who actually know what they are talking about.\
