Friday, February 4, 2011

NOM savages Iowa Sen. Mike Gronstal: 'You will vote wrong...because of your ugly motives';
GOP attacks gay families: Complete list of Iowa Representatives who voted for HJR 6

The National Organization for Marriage wasted no time responding to Monday's HJR 6 hearing and vote. On NOM's blog, Brian Brown launched an unusually nasty attack on Mike Gronstal, the Iowa Senate majority leader:
After a reasoned debate, an overwhelming majority of the House voted to give to the people of Iowa the right to decide the question of gay marriage.
     And how did Mike Gronstal respond? “I cannot cooperate in taking away the rights of a significant number of Iowans,” he sententiously intoned, as he vowed to take away from every Iowa citizen the right to vote for marriage.
     Talk about a lack of self-reflection. If it were possible to imagine a paper in Des Moines like the New York Post (impossible to picture such a snarky delight in good-natured, responsible Iowa), the headline would read: “Mike Gronstal to Iowa Voters: Drop Dead!”
     Just a bunch of bigots, the voters of Iowa.
     The amazing thing is how very close Rep. Gronstal comes to saying just that, in barely-veiled terms.
     Gronstal vows to prevent a vote on a marriage amendment because he says it's not about him:  “It's about a significant portion of the citizens of this state that some people say shouldn't have the same rights that everybody else does,” he said.
     In other words, it's about you: You will vote wrong because of your wrong values, your ugly motives, your illegitimate vision for marriage.
     It's rare for an elected official to describe (even implicitly) the citizens of his own state in such dark terms.
NOM's hypocrisy is as shameless as it is boundless. On the same blog, on the same day NOM criticized the governor of Rhode Island for spending too much time on gay marriage,
“Lincoln Chafee has recently asked for more time to work on the state budget, but our question is why has he been wasting the state’s time pushing his same-sex marriage agenda instead of focusing on the economy?” said Christopher Plante, Executive Director of NOM-RI.
then simultaneously lauded Iowa's House for spending time on gay marriage even in the face of a huge snowstorm (Aksarbent saw five abandoned vehicles and a jackknifed semi off I-80 on the way back to Omaha from Des Moines)
The Iowa House voted overwhelmingly (62 to 37!) to refer the question of marriage to the people of Iowa--to give Iowa citizens the right to decide whether or not gay marriage should be part of Iowa's constitution...Iowans, on the eve of a humongous snowstorm that has shut down half the country, thronged the House hearing room, eager to at last be heard.
Gee, Brian and Maggie, we at Aksarbent may cry. (Actually the salt in tears might help melt the snow on our face.) In between tears, we would remind Maggie and Brian that NOM accusing Sen. Mike Gronstal of "ugly motives" is like, oh, hell, we don't know, maybe like a fat globule complaining about obesity.

Here are the Iowa General Assembly representatives (published in the Des Moines Register by Jason Clayworth) who voted in favor of House Joint Resolution 6 to allow voters amend Iowa's constitution to ban same sex marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships. All are Republicans except Swaim, Muhlbauer and Quirk. If any of the following "represented" you, then why not tell them what you think of their vote here?

Dwayne Alons, Sioux
Richard Anderson, Page
Richard Arnold, Lucas
Chip Baltimore, Boone
Clel Baudler, Adair
Mark Brandenburg, Pottawattamie
Josh Byrnes, Mitchell
Royd Chambers, O’Brien
Peter Cownie, Polk
Dave Deyoe, Story
Cecil Dolecheck, Ringgold
Jack Drake, Cass
Greg Forristall, Pottawattamie
Joel Fry, Clarke
Julian Garrett, Warren
Pat Grassley, Butler
Chris Hagenow, Polk
Bob Hager, Allamakee
Mary Ann Hanusa, Pottawattamie
David Heaton, Henry
Lee Hein, Jones
Erik Helland, Polk
Lance Horbach, Tama
Daniel Huseman, Cherokee
Stewart Iverson, Wright
Ron Jorgensen, Woodbury
Jeff Kaufmann, Cedar
Jarad Klein, Washington
Kevin Koester, Polk
Mark Lofgren, Muscatine
Steven Lukan, Dubuque
Glen Massie, Warren
Linda Miller, Scott
Brian Moore, Jackson
Dan Muhlbauer, Crawford
Steven Olson, Clinton
Kraig Paulsen, Linn
Ross Paustian, Scott
Kim Pearson, Polk
Dawn Pettengill, Benton
Brian Quirk, Chickasaw
Scott Raecker, Polk
Dan Rasmussen, Buchanan
Henry Rayhons, Hancock
Walt Rogers, Black Hawk
Thomas Sands, Louisa
Renee Schulte, Linn
Jason Schultz, Crawford
Tom Shaw, Pocahontas
Jeff Smith, Dickinson
Chuck Soderberg, Plymouth
Kurt Swaim, Davis
Annette Sweeney, Hardin
Jeremy Taylor, Woodbury
David Tjepkes, Webster
Linda Upmeyer, Hancock
James Van Engelenhoven, Marion
Guy Vander Linden, Mahaska
Nick Wagner, Linn
Ralph Watts, Dallas
Matt Windschitl, Harrison
Gary Worthan, Buena Vista

No comments:

Post a Comment

ShareThis