Same-sex marriage a top issue for GOP gubernatorial candidates

With the 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, creating jobs and protecting Iowans' priorities: education, health-care, safe communities.

Although 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.

There are too many economic issues for same-sex marriage to be the No. 1 issue of the campaign, but it will be in the top three, according to a Republican campaign coordinator.

A Democratic campaign staffer looking at who's supporting GOP gubernatorial candidates predicts same-sex marriage is going to be “huge.” Or at least groups like the Iowa Family Policy Center PAC will try to make it an issue, he said.

“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 Iowa 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 Parks, political director for One Iowa, the state's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) 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,” Parks 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 not only 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 explained. “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,” he said. “The Democrats, as the incumbent majority, have to deal with two incensed groups.”

Democrats are fired up, too, a campaign operative speaking on background said. They're still motivated by their victories in 2008 and, more recently, by their health-care victory. However, he conceded, there are a lot of groups – religious conservatives, tea party activists, fiscal conservatives – firing up the political right and maybe not as many firing up the left.

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 Bob 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 same-sex marriage supporting 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.'”