From: WhatIsGoingOnBlog.com – By Karen Benardello – In an effort to overturn an Iowa state Supreme Court decision earlier this year that legalized same-sex marriage, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the main supporter of California’s Proposition 8, has launched the Reclaim Iowa Project. The group hopes the project will help bring candidates who support putting the issue of gay marriage before voters to the state’s legislative office.
In support of this movement, Brian Brown, the organization’s executive director, said “Iowa is important because the Supreme Court decision was so against the will of the people of Iowa and the Legislature and Gov. (Chet) Culver showed absolutely no backbone in giving the people the right to have their voices heard.”
To get the movement started, on September 1, a special election is being held in southeastern Iowa’s House District 90. Since Democratic Rep. John Whitaker resigned to take a job with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Republican Stephen Burgmeier and Democrat Curt Hanson are running against each other for the vacated seat. The NOM is backing Burgmeier, even though he has said he has never even spoken to any officials.
“They may have heard about me and what I stand for and they’ve taken advantage of that to get their message out,” Burgmeier said. “They seem to have the same core value I have…but I had no knowledge of them being interested in this race.”
In response to the organization’s actions, Brad Clark, the campaign director for One Iowa, said an online petition was launched on Wednesday, August 26, asking the group to release a list of its contributors. He has also criticized the Mormon church, who supported Prop-8 as well.
“They (NOM) and the Mormon church (have) invested millions of dollars and now they have their sights set on Iowa,” Clark said. “They have been funneling money from the Mormon church into these activities and we’re encouraging our friends and supporters to call on NOM to release a list of those donors.”
While Clark is confident that the campaign will fail, if NOM is successful, it will take years to reverse the law. Iowa law requires that successive general assemblies approve measures before they can be sent to voters, meaning lawmakers elected next year would need to pass a measure, which would then need to be approved by legislators elected in 2012. The measure would then go before voters in a general election, and the earliest the vote on banning gay marriage would be 2014.