Iowa's motto has always been, "Our liberties we prize, our rights we will maintain!" Now, does that seem like something that NOM would endorse? Yet, on the heals of an unfortunately successful campaign to oust three of our Supreme Court justices based on only religious animus (and a misunderstanding of the Retention process!) directed at their 2009 decision to void the anti-Gay discriminatory marriage law in our state, NOM will be driving through Iowa on another bus-tour called the Iowa Values Voter Bus Tour. It is scheduled to kick off in Des Moines next Monday, 8 August and will be hitting 22 different towns and cities (mostly very conservative) in the subsequent 4 days -- this tour will culminate in Ames during the Iowa straw poll event. However, according to the Des Moines Register (linked) the tour is scheduled yo kick off on Tuesday rather than the banner of their e-mail which says "Monday 8 August", rather than "Tuesday 9 August". Here is their schedule; one can only imagine what fear-mongering Maggie and Brian has in store... Will they allow local preachers to insist that we are worthy of death as they did during their Bronx anti-Gay hate-rally? At any rate, NOM doesn't appear too keen on the fact that Iowa has the strongest Equal Protections Claus in the Nation, one that Maggie Gallagher insists can (must?) only protect race and religion, because she has gone on the record as insisting that its impossible to discriminate against us. Brian Browne, the group's President, has even gone on record declaring that he and his group wants the ability to discriminate against Gays and Lesbians in the public sphere in terms of housing, employment, and goods and services so long as they are "free" to invoke their Christian religion as a legal defense! One must ask, then, why NOM and Christians want special rights that no other religion has?!
- TUESDAY, AUGUST 9TH
- 9:45 AM – 10:30 AM: Des Moines
Iowa State Capitol, West Capitol Terrace, 400 Finkbine Drive - 12:00 PM – 12:30 PM: Oskaloosa
City Square Park, 150 High Avenue East - 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM: Washington
Central Park, 190 North Marion Avenue - 3:45 PM – 4:15 PM: Muscatine
Riverside Park, Harbor Drive - 5:15 PM – 5:45 PM: Davenport
Lafayette Park, 700 West 4th Street - 7:00 PM – 7:30 PM: Iowa City
Culver’s of Coralville, 2591 Heartland Place, Coralville
- 9:45 AM – 10:30 AM: Des Moines
- WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10TH
- 8:30 – 9:00 AM: Cedar Rapids
Cedar Rapids Marriott, 1200 Collins Road NE - 10:30 AM – 11:00 AM: Dubuque
Washington Park, 351 W 6th Street - 12:45 PM – 1:15 PM: Waterloo
Lincoln Park, 451 E 4th Street - 3:00 PM – 3:30 PM: Mason City
Central Park, 75 1st Street NW - 5:45 PM – 6:15 PM: Dickinson County
TBA
- 8:30 – 9:00 AM: Cedar Rapids
- THURSDAY, AUGUST 11TH
- 8:30 – 9:00 AM: Sioux City
Holiday Inn Express Sioux Center, 100 Saint Andrews Way - 9:30 AM – 10:00 AM: Le Mars
Bob’s Drive Inn, Highway 75 South - 10:45 AM – 11:15 AM: Sioux City
Sergeant Floyd Monument, 2701 S Lewis Blvd/Old US Highway 75 - 1:30 PM – 2:00 PM: Council Bluffs
Bayliss Park, 159 South 6th Street - 3:15 PM – 3:45 PM: Atlantic
Atlantic City Park, 51 W 6th Street
- 8:30 – 9:00 AM: Sioux City
- FRIDAY, AUGUST 12TH
- 10:00 AM – 10:30 AM: Webster City
Wilson Brewer Park, 280 Ohio Street - 11:15 AM – 11:45 AM: Fort Dodge
City Square Park, 120 N 5th Street - 1:30 PM – 2:00 PM: Carroll
Carroll County Courthouse, 595 Court Street - 3:15 PM – 3:45 PM: Boone
Pizza Ranch, 1703 South Story Street - 5:00 PM – 5:30 PM: Marshalltown
Susie Sower Park, 60 N 2nd Avenue
- 10:00 AM – 10:30 AM: Webster City
Interestingly (at least to me), Bob Vander Plaats and his FAMiLY LEADER cronies don't seem to be involved with this project. You would think that they would want to glom onto this project. Maybe it has to do with BVP's presidential "marriage vow" endorsement flop last month...
ReplyDeleteI know! Right? Perhaps it might *also* have something to do with him laughing at a "fag" joke on camera which, sadly, the local media seemed to ignore, and he has yet to apologize for!
ReplyDeleteHe'll never apologize for that. Instead, they turned that incident into a fund-raising event...
ReplyDelete"Fund-raising event"? How, considering it was so spiteful and hateful!
ReplyDeleteI was also more than a little furious about how the local media never seemed to cover such an anti-Gay gaff by ol' BVP! 'Course, they ignored the Dems. and portrayed the anti-Gay Reps. as merely wanting to merely "up-hold their oath of office and defend the Constitution" by putting an anti-Gay marriage law on the ballot! The local GLBT Groups--like One Iowa--should try and hold the media JUST as accountable.
ReplyDeleteI remember watching the local news from DSM last month and saw how they implicately paired two seemingly anti-Gay news pieces: one segment was about the Gay male nudist beach (Racceen River Resort!) and how inappropriate it is to families rafting down the river; and immediately afterward was a segment about a hetero. child molester in IA. who was being sentenced!
Yeah, one of FAMiLY LEADER's spokespeople was crowing last week about all the money they have received since they began getting criticized over the whole "Iowa: Where you can't smoke a fag, but you can marry one" joke. http://jontrouten.blogspot.com/2011/07/bvp-and-family-leader-turn-their-recent.html
ReplyDeleteOh my gods, that horrible!!!
ReplyDeleteOh, by the way, Jon, in case it wasn't oh-so-totally obvious, I happen to be the owner of this Blog: Wade@MacMorrighan.Net
ReplyDeleteYup, I got it. Hi Wade!! *waves*
ReplyDeleteBTW, I find it funny that Iowa City's stop will actually be in Coralville and the very outskirts of Coralville, at that!
Yeah, what's THAT about, anyway? Iowa City is such a large and diverse city from what I recall when driving through there to the hospital: it's where I was diagnosed with Meniere's Disease...and, I've only been there once. :o( I wish that Des Moines and IA. City were closer to me, though...
ReplyDelete