Iowa, you are no Mississippi

By Charles Crawley

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If you're like most Iowans, your life has not changed much since the Iowa Supreme Court's Varnum v. Brien decision in 2009, which legalized same-sex marriage. Except perhaps if you happen to be gay or lesbian, which means you can now marry and have all the rights and responsibilities of

marriage, which are

considerable.

But for a small and vocal group of Iowans led by Bob Vander Plaats and supported by lots of out-of-state money, Varnum v. Brien was the beginning of a religious crusade to restore marriage to its rightful, biblical and natural state between a man and a woman.

Frustrated by their inability to bring this restoration to a vote of the people, they turned their attention to the Iowa Supreme Court, which had made Iowa one of the few states in the United States where gays and lesbians could legally marry.

But in November 2010, the judicial retention vote, normally reserved to remove judges for malfeasance in office, denied three justices their continuation at the bench.

Not satisfied with this form of judicial lynching, the crusaders demanded that the remaining justices step down out of shame. When that failed, impeachment was tried. That failing, Vander Plaats and his disciples are now trying to force the Iowa Senate to “let us vote” on whether or not marriage should only be between a woman and a man.

Letting people vote on other people's civil rights - of which marriage is one - is another way of letting a majority tyrannize the minority, which is what the Iowa Supreme Court tried to prevent in Varnum v. Brien.

At the root of this crusade is not an evangelical, but a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible and a naturalistic understanding of marriage. That understanding sees marriage only as an institution for procreation, which leaves out a whole lot of us, and not just lesbians and gays.

As the late Rev. Peter Gomes, one of America's most widely known preachers, has said, “Religious fundamentalism is dangerous because it cannot accept ambiguity and diversity and is therefore inherently intolerant. Such intolerance, in the name of virtue, is ruthless and uses political power to destroy what it cannot convert.”

I hope like-minded Iowans will join me and others who don't want Iowa to become another Alabama or Mississippi - states where judges are elected to great political fanfare and where religious diversity is not seen as a thing to be proud of.

Iowa, you are better than that.

Charles R. Crawley of Cedar Rapids is a co-founder of Faith In Iowa, an interfaith group dedicated to the promotion of judicial independence and religious freedom. Comments: faithiniowa@gmail.com