Same-sex marriage will be issue on campaign trail
- James Q. Lynch www. qctimes.com March 30, 2010
DES MOINES — With the Iowa legislature moving toward adjournment, the year-long battle to overturn the Iowa Supreme Court decision establishing same-sex marriage is moving to a new venue — the campaign trail.
Party leaders insist the 2010 election will be about the economy, jobs and protecting Iowans’ priorities: education, health-care, safe communities.
The effort to overturn the April 3, 2009, decision legalizing same-sex marriage is unlikely to be “the” issue of the campaign, campaign operatives say, but it will be an issue that, in some races, may influence the outcome.
“We don’t have to go out of our way to make it an issue. It is an issue,” said Bryan English, of the Iowa Family Policy Center Action and The Iowa Family PAC.
The state supreme court’s year-old decision on same-sex marriage will be a flashpoint because Iowa Family PAC represents “people who are in the core activist of the Republican Party,” according to Drake University political science professor Dennis Goldford. “Their concerns are first and foremost social and religious issues.”
Hard-line conservatives have always had their demons, Goldford said.
“For the longest time, it was the communist threat,” he said. “Now it’s the, quote unquote, homosexual threat.”
However, Brad Clark, political director for One Iowa, the state’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender advocacy organization, isn’t sure most Iowans care as deeply as the Iowa Family PAC’s supporters.
“Politically, public opinion polling shows this is increasingly a moot issue,” Clark said. “The sun still rises, life goes on, it really hasn’t had an impact in that regard.”
Same-sex marriage “is a divisive debate that pits neighbor against neighbor,” he said. “That’s not what we need.”
But the issue “animates so much of (conservatives’) political passion right now,” Goldford said. In mid-term elections, he said, “anything that fires up the base will have a big impact. That’s a problem for Democrats because angry people vote.”
Republican candidates will benefit from the efforts of the Christian Right as well as the overall anti-incumbent mood and distrust of government, Goldford said.
“You’ve got two different groups, the Tea Party types and social and religious conservative types,” Goldford said. “The Tea Party types are fixed on health care, the budget, the deficit. The social conservatives are focused on gay marriage and abortion and things like that.
“You’ve got two intensely motivated groups. They double the problem for the Democrats. The Democrats, as the incumbent majority, have to deal with two incensed groups.”
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats said the same-sex marriage issue is brought up at every one of his political events.
Vander Plaats said that although he believes marriage should be between one man and one woman, the issue has changed somewhat.
“It’s transformed a little bit from a one woman-one man marriage issue to a freedom issue,” he said. “The Iowa Supreme Court did what many believe they can’t do, which is make law from the bench, execute law from the bench and amend the Constitution from the bench.”
Iowa’s next governor, he said, needs to hold the state’s highest court in check and let the process play out where it is supposed to.
“You may agree with the opinion of the court on this issue, but there may be another issue in the future where you don’t agree with the court’s ruling,” he said.
“Every freedom you hold dear is up for grabs if you allow the courts to make law, execute law and amend the Constitution,” Vander Plaats said.
Health care is a prime example, he said.
“Many people are seeing it as another one of our freedoms being taken away,” he said. “The federal government passed health-care reform without listening to the people in hometown meetings.”
As far as same-sex marriage issue, he said, “People are seeing it as a freedom issue probably more than anything else at this point.”
Democrats are fired up, too, motivated by their victories in 2008 and, more recently, by the health-care victory. However, a lot of groups — religious conservatives, Tea Party activists, fiscal conservatives — are firing up the political right.
Richard Clewell, of Davenport, a Democrat who is taking aim at the state Senate seat held by Republican Sen. David Hartsuch, said the people he has talked to have put the same-sex marriage issue on a back burner or have dismissed it altogether. They are more concerned about the economy than anything else, he said.
“Trying to get our economics back in line, trying to get economic stability and sustainability, that is the priority right now,” Clewell said.
“There is an interest in the same-sex marriage issue, and in time, the legislature will deal with that issue,” he said. “But the emphasis now has got to be straightening out our own economic outlook.”
Clewell said he was in San Antonio, Texas, when he learned the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision that it is wrong to discriminate against people.
“I heard that, and I thought, ‘I’m from Iowa and I’m proud they came up with that conclusion,’” he said.
There is a role for government in the workings of the state and nation, Clewell said.
“I think the role of government is to be an honest broker on issues,” he said. “But to tell people they can’t marry someone of the same sex is not what government should be doing, and I think the Iowa Supreme Court ruled correctly on that issue.”
Gay rights activists may have a personal stake in the 2010 election, Goldford said, “but my suspicion is they are not as big a group as those who oppose same-sex marriage.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean Democrats will lose the governor’s office and their legislative majorities. Republicans face an ideological divide between “Main Street” Republicans and “Church Street” Republicans. Iowa Family PAC has gone on record saying it won’t support former Gov. Terry Branstad as the Republican nominee. It has endorsed Vander Plaats. If he doesn’t get the GOP nomination, he could run as a third-party candidate or the Christian Right could sit out the election.
The Iowa Family PAC might not be big enough to win elections on its own, English said, “but they’re big enough to determine who will win.”
Even if it means Democrats win, English said.
“We don’t have a compelling motivation to violate our core principles that we are called to stand for in order to elect some politician,” English said. “We answer to God, not to a political party.”
That philosophical chasm between the pragmatists and the purists may be the biggest obstacle Iowa Republicans face, Goldford said.
“The pragmatists’ view is that it is their job to win elections and the party is a coalition,” he said. “The purist says, ‘Our party is a church, and our job is to circle the wagons and burn the heretics and damn the consequences.’”
(Times reporter Thomas Geyer contributed to this story.)
