It wasn’t until Atlantic reporter Joshua Green called
former state representative Danny Carroll that Carroll started to understand what hit him. He had been Speaker
Pro Tempore of the Iowa State House, which was controlled by
Republicans right up to the 2006 midterm elections. Then he went
down to unexpected defeat, contributing to his party’s loss of both
houses of the state legislature.
Carroll’s district is home to Grinnell College, so he had
assumed that high turnout among the liberal student body, as well
as low turnout for Republicans generally, had caused his defeat. It
wasn’t until Green called him to ask about the gay rights activism
of Quark founder Tim Gill that Carroll realized his defeat had been
part of a coordinated plan.
Gill had quietly spearheaded an effort to fund challenges to 70
anti-gay marriage state politicians in the 2006 election cycle.
Fifty of them went down to defeat. Green convinced Carroll to look
at the source of some of the larger donations to his Democratic
opponent Eric Palmer, and was rewarded with good soundbyte:
“Denver…Dallas…Los Angeles…Malibu…there’s New York
again…San Francisco! I can’t — I just cannot believe this!”
Carroll confirmed to TAS that his surprise was genuine.
About the money’s origin, he said, “I had no clue.” And he isn’t
willing to take it lying down. “I will be running for re-election
in November,” he said. The official announcement is scheduled for
tomorrow.
One of the reasons for Carroll’s loss was that Iowa voters
believed the gay marriage issue was long settled, which decreased
the urgency of social conservatives to get out the vote. In 1998,
the legislature added a law to the Iowa code that stated simply,
“Only a marriage between a male and a female is valid.”
Then, in late August of last year, Judge Robert Hanson, a
district court judge for Polk County, stepped in. Citing the
landmark anti-sodomy laws Supreme Court ruling Lawrence v.
Texas, Hanson determined that the state’s argument linking
marriage to procreation is “specious at best,” and that “the total
exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage…is completely
arbitrary.”
The decision has since been appealed, but not before one couple,
Sean Fritz and Tim McQuillan, was legally married at the Polk
County courthouse.
“WE DIDN’T ask for this,” huffed Chuck Hurley, president of the
Iowa Family Policy Center of the gay marriage debacle. “It was
forced on us.”
In many ways, Iowa is the perfect test case for a gay marriage
suit. The state lacks
an initiative process, so there was no risk that irate voters
would unilaterally ban gay marriage in the next election cycle. To
even give voters that choice, constitutional amendments must pass
both houses of the legislature in two consecutive terms, and the
Democrats aren’t interested in putting it to a vote.
Iowa also has no residency requirement for marriage. So, unlike
Massachusetts, the fall-out of gay marriage won’t be quarantined to
the state.
If the appeal flounders, a gay couple from Virginia could travel
to Iowa, legally marry after a three-day wait, return home, and sue
the Old Dominion to recognize their union. The conflict between
state laws would precipitate a constitutional battle that ends up
in the Supreme Court, where all bets are off.
Given the high court’s recent decisions on gay issues, it’s not
far fetched to say that gay marriage could then be legalized
nationally without the consent of a single voter.
The push for Democratic challengers and the court challenge were
financed by out-of-state groups and donors who clearly wanted a
clean test case for gay marriage. And yet, Christopher Rants,
minority leader of the Republican Party in the state house,
complained, “If you mention where the money is coming from, then
they call you a hatemonger.”
Chuck Hurley can attest to that. After publicly decrying the
impact of “out-of-state homosexual activists” on Iowa’s gay
marriage debate, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal alleged, “Mr.
Hurley’s real motivation has always been hate-mongering and raising
money from hard-working Iowans to cover his salary.”
Rants fears that if the Iowa Supreme Court upholds Judge
Hanson’s ruling, the already-flagging support for a constitutional
amendment will evaporate. “People get nervous when you talk about
amending the Constitution — especially when it means reversing the
courts,” he said.
A source familiar with the Iowa legislative process said that
Thursday, March 6 was one of two “funnel days” for the 100-day 2008
legislative calendar. Since the amendment didn’t move forward on
that day, chances are it won’t. Rants pointed out that Democratic
state representative Kurt Swain “co-sponsored the marriage
amendment bill and can’t even bring it to a full vote.”
The Des Moines Register
reports that 122 of 150 lawmakers in Iowa support the
traditional definition of marriage. But that’s a far cry from
supporting a constitutional amendment to that effect, which the
Democratic leadership has declined to do. House Speaker Pat Murphy
recently told the Sioux City Journal flatly, “We are not
going to take up this bill.”
Would the legislature at least pass a residency requirement? No,
said Rants: “We have no reason to think [the Democratic majority]
will meet us half-way in that regard.”
He added, “Without a residency restriction, a gay marriage law
would make Iowa ‘the gay Las Vegas.’”
Except that what happens in Iowa won’t stay in Iowa.
