Family experience can pave the way for rest of Iowa

By Bill McCartan

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I am a Republican and a practicing Catholic. Yet I support the decision of the Iowa Supreme Court on marriage equality and oppose the effort to remove three justices who joined the unanimous decision of the Court.

I start with a fairly simple proposition: One does not choose one's sexual orientation. The American Psychiatric Association long ago abandoned the notion that homosexuality was a disorder. Likewise, programs claiming to change the sexual orientation of gay people have failed, often despite the deepest hopes of the participants. Thus, no viewpoint based in reason or faith in a loving God could advocate discrimination against lesbians and gay men.

Like many Iowans, I have gay family members - my sister, and my brother-in-law - whom I love very much. We also have several close friends who are gay. Knowing these people, their goodness and the profound struggles they faced to come to terms with how God made them, in the face of intolerance and sometimes ugly hatred, has forced me to think a great deal about these issues.

I vividly remember the day I sat at a lunch table and told our then 60-something parents that my sister was gay. (Incidentally, she put me up to this task and she still owes me.) Our parents were raised in small Iowa towns, in a completely different era. As a parent of four, I know the dreams we have for our children. This was not our parents' vision for their child.

At first, my parents were horribly conflicted and even angry - like some in our state when the marriage equality decision was announced.

But a magical thing happened in our family, and I believe something much the same can happen across Iowa. For my parents, the gravitational pull of family overwhelmed all else. They loved their daughter and this fact gave them the strength to reach out to her and make sure she knew their love for her remained. Like the true Iowans they are, they then got educated. They read extensively on these difficult issues and the views of the scientific community. They met with counselors and groups of parents who had faced this same challenge.

Ultimately, because they have the fundamental decency that is key to our state's DNA, they reached a place of peace and acceptance.

Today, that place of peace and acceptance means that a 70-year-old daughter of the school nurse from Red Oak and a 73-year-old farmer's son from Pocahontas, can vacation with their daughter and her partner (the jock in the family that my dad always wished for). They socialize comfortably with my sister and her group of friends (though the guys among my sister's friends favor a bit tighter jeans than my dad likes to wear).

Most critically, the fact that my sister is gay, which at first defined their relationship with her, has become pretty much irrelevant.

As family-first, enlightened and decent people, our state can make the same journey that my family and lots of other Iowa families have made.

In the voting booth this year, we face the question whether we think gay people - for many of us, sons, daughters, sisters and brothers - are entitled to love and to be loved by other consenting adults according to how God made them. As we have so many times in the past, I believe that on Nov. 2, we will again show our country that Iowans are people of uncommon decency and wisdom.

And in 20 years, the vast majority of us will be deeply proud of our example.

Bill McCartan is a corporate and securities attorney in Cedar Rapids. Comments: bmccartan@bradleyriley.com