Stories

Sen. John McCain was in Gladbrook, Iowa, Sunday evening campaigning at a house party.  He spoke on the lawn at the home of Lynn and Claire Handorf and then took questions from the audience and press.

Regarding last week’s Polk County ruling that allowed at least one gay couple to marry in Des Moines, McCain [...]

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul firmly believes marriage should be between one man and one woman, communications director Jesse Benton tells Iowa Independent.

But Paul, a Texas congressman with a raft of libertarian viewpoints, consistently opposes efforts to amend the Constitution to deal with gay marriage.

While he’s opposed to the substance of a high-profile Polk County [...]

(Commentary) What does gay marriage really mean for the straight majority?
Are gay recruiting squads going to sprout up and turn people? Will America devolve into ancient Sparta, where male homosexuality was compulsory?
Hardly. "Real" men will still watch re-runs of Baywatch, and the Miss Makita tool girl will be the biggest draw for men in Carroll, [...]

Sen. Sam Brownback, the Kansas social conservative now running for the Republican presidential nomination, decried the Iowa court ruling, likely to be stayed until a final determination by the Iowa Supreme Court can be made, allowing gays and lesbians to marry in Polk County. In a statement released by his campaign, he said:
“We should have [...]

Kim Painter of Iowa City is on the front lines of today’s gay marriage ruling both personally and professionally.  As Johnson County recorder, she issues the county’s marriage licenses.  Yet before Thursday’s court ruling, Painter and her longtime partner were ineligible for a license themselves.  After winning competitive primary and general elections in 1998, Painter [...]

Paul Osterholt, Iowa Democratic Party Gay and Lesbian Caucus, chairman:
“The civil contract to create a legal union between two people, regardless of the gender of each person, has always been a right guaranteed by our state constitution. That is the word from the Iowa District Court in Polk
County.
“Previous rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court have [...]

(Commentary) Today’s ruling in favor of gay marriage, in the largest county in the first (?) caucus state, could have a national ripple effect on the presidential campaign.  Will the hot-button issue move to the national front burner again?

On the Democratic side, only long shot candidate Dennis Kucinich supports gay marriage.  The other contenders support [...]

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson struck down Iowa’s prohibition on same-sex marriage Thursday.

In his 63-page decision, Hanson wrote that the statute excluding same-sex couples from marriage “violates Plaintiff’s due process and equal protection rights for the aforementioned reasons including, but not limited to, the absence of a rational relationship to the achievement of any legitimate [...]

East Carolina University political scientist Peter Francia says he doesn’t generally quote comedians.

But Francia, co-author of a provocative study on the gay marriage issue in rural America’s presidential voting in 2004, says funny man Bill Maher has the perfect description of the 2008 election: “Brown is the new pink.” In other words, a possible GOP [...]

Two East Carolina University professors who have exhaustively examined county-level data are concluding that only gay marriage played a more significant role in voting patterns in rural counties than urban ones in 2004 when it came to support for George W. Bush.

One influential rural journalist who has reviewed the study, Bill Bishop, editor of the [...]