“It seems like a lot of people who are younger said, ‘This isn’t for me’ and left,” Smith says.

Robert Hughes, a former Anderson resident who also attends Ball State, agrees that the university is a supportive environment for gay men and lesbians, and he says young people in Anderson and Muncie are slowly helping the cities become more accepting.

“A growing majority of older folks here in Muncie and there in Anderson are just now starting to become comfortable with the fact that my community is here, that we’ve always been here,” Hughes, 34, said. “ We are just more active in society than we were 20 or 30 years ago.”

For example, Hughes and Smith are both members of Spectrum, a Ball State student organization that advocates for tolerance of gays, lesbians and transgender people.

Being 6 feet 4 inches tall has helped Hughes avoid any personal attacks, but he says his sexuality has caused people to treat him differently, especially in the workplace.

He recalls working at a hotel in Muncie and coworkers telling him that they didn’t mind Hughes being gay as long as he didn’t hit on any of them.

“As if they were even my type,” Hughes now jokes.

For Andy Mathews, Anderson served as a temporary home during the years when he came out as a gay man.

Mathews, 23, returned to his hometown of Franklin, Ind., last year after graduating from Anderson University. While in college, he says he had a hard time coming out to his family, his school and his church.

“It was a long process,” Mathews said. “It was kind of a challenge for me growing up in a faith-based environment and with faith being something very important for myself. I was always taught that being gay was wrong.”

AU: Homosexuality is misconduct

Throughout college, Mathews told people he “struggled with homosexuality” out of fear that admitting he was gay would hurt his standing with friends and his church.

But toward the end of his junior year, he began telling friends and university officials that he was gay.

“I expected there to be a lot more rejection than I got,” he said.