Camping Conspiracy

State Sen. Merlin Bartz curiously carried the fight over same-sex marriages to the state's campgrounds this week.

Now he finds himself in the media weeds.

Bartz, R-Grafton, decried an attempt by the Department of Natural Resources to allow legally married same-sex couples with kids to qualify as a “family” under camping rules. Families can have more than one tent or trailer at a single site.

Broadening that definition lit a campfire under Bartz, who called it part of an “insidious pattern” of actions by state agencies to acknowledge the Iowa Supreme Court's 2009 ruling legalizing same-sex unions.

Today they get campsites. Tomorrow, it could be discount green fees. Where will it end?

The DNR claims the marriage ruling didn't prompt the change. But the story had already broken lose like an RV without breaks. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann tweeted with scornful glee. Blogs buzzed. By the time the story made it around the Web a few times, it sounded like Bartz was sponsoring a constitutional amendment to ban gay camping.

I've always liked Bartz. After all, he's family. A cousin on my mom's side. When I covered the Legislature and he was in his first stint as a senator, I saw him as a smart, thoughtful guy. I still do.

That's why I've been so disappointed by his crusade against same-sex couples and their families. He famously urged county officials across Iowa to defy the court's ruling and refuse to issue marriage licenses. No one heeded his call.

Now he's after the DNR, and the Department of Revenue, which had the audacity to recognize legally married couples in its tax rules. He's worried that the Iowa Public Employees Retirement System, or IPERS, might provide spousal benefits in a way that accounts for marriage equity. Under every bureaucratic rock is a new conspiracy in equality.

“I do not believe it's in the state's best interest to promote this lifestyle,” Bartz said.

You're not going to change his mind. Trust me.

And in a way, Bartz is providing a service.

With his help, it's much easier to see that behind opponents' high-minded, gauzy talk about our right to vote and separation of powers is a small-minded effort to make sure same-sex couples and their families remain marginalized and unaccepted by their own government. Down to the last tent.

Like the Grinch racing from house to house in Whoville, equity opponents race from agency to agency. They simply must stop gay marriage from coming.

I give Bartz points for persistence. But he's staked his tent on the wrong side of history.

Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@gazcomm.com