Iowa Conservative Leader Speaking Out for Marriage Equality

Iowa voters responded to the unanimous state supreme court decision that brought marriage equality to America's heartland by tossing out all three justices who came up for a retention vote last November. But a new twist in the unfolding history of same-sex family parity shows that not all conservatives in Iowa reject marriage equality.

Former State Sen. Jeff Angelo remains committed to his conservative identity, reported the Cedar Rapids Gazette in June 2 column by Todd Dorman. But Angelo also remains committed to a vision of personal freedom and responsibility, free from undue government interference, the column said.

"Angelo is an evangelical Christian and a conservative," the column read, going on to note that the former state senator had supported a 2004 attempt to ban marriage equality by rewriting the Iowa constitution -- but adding that Angelo has gone on to reconsider. Indeed, he's created a group called Iowa Republicans for Freedom, which is dedicated to saving Iowa from just such an amendment, and preserving the freedom of gay and lesbian families to enter into the same legal status as heterosexuals.

"Angelo is determined to show that not all Republicans march in lock-step on marriage equity," Dorman's column said. "And he wants fellow party members to know it's OK, even genuinely conservative, to break ranks on this issue. He's receiving encouragement from some party members, but only very quietly, for now."

"The bottom line is, Democrats can point fingers at Republicans all day long," Angelo told the Gazette. "But if you really want Republicans to change their view, Republicans have to talk to Republicans."

"Angelo once bought into the 'love the sinner, hate the sin' line used by equity opponents trying to put a happy face on their hard line," wrote Dorman. But eventually he saw through that rhetoric.

"You finally say, 'How long can I keep demeaning them?' " Angelo said.

"Angelo also wondered how long his party, anchored to principles of small government and limited bureaucratic intervention in our lives, could advocate for denying the pursuit of happiness to thousands," the column added.

Gays and their families are rapidly gaining greater acceptance in American culture. It's in American politics that progress lags -- and especially among the political right. To some, like Angelo, there's a disconnect there. How can a party that preaches the virtues of personal liberty and freedom from big, intrusive government continue to advocate for laws that roadblock, or even strip away, rights for some even as the majority continues to enjoy those same rights?

"If you truly believe in freedom, you have to allow things to happen that you don't agree with," Angelo told the paper. "You've got to start the work of making it OK for Republicans to say what they really believe."

Angelo reportedly sees his own organization as "only the beginning of more Republican-centric organizations advocating for same-sex rights, including civil marriage," a June 4 Proud Parenting article said.

"Iowa is in the perfect position to start the conversation about how the Republican platform can get back to its conservative roots and back to being a party that stands for true conservative values, like limited government," Angelo said.

Angelo, who is straight himself and has three children, has pursued a higher media profile for his message, appearing recently on National Public Radio with Louis Marinelli, the former tour organizer for anti-gay group the National Organization for Marriage who renounced his opposition to marriage equality earlier this year.

Angelo and Marinelli appeared on NPR's "The Takeaway", which broadcast a June 6 program dedicated to the topic "Why Are Americans Changing Their Minds on Gay Marriage?"

"Last month for the first time ever, the majority of respondents [of a Gallup poll] said they were in favor of legalizing gay marriage. That means that some people had to change their minds, right?" host Celeste Headlee noted. "Last year, Louis Marinelli helped organize the 2010 Summer for Marriage Tour which stood in opposition to gay marriage. This year, Louis is leading the Summer for Marriage Equality Tour," Headlee continued.

"In one year's time, you did a complete one-eighty," Headlee said to Marinelli. "What was the foundation of your opposition to gay marriage a year ago?"

Marinelli responded, "[B]asically, I hadn't had an opportunity to actually meet these people, and I saw them as faceless and nameless political opponents." Once he had a chance to interact with a few gay people and hear their concerns about how their families are treated under law, however, his preconceptions melted away.

"It was meeting them and talking to them and being face to face with them, instead of attacking them and misrepresenting them through a computer screen," Marinelli said.

Angelo also shared the story of his change of heart.

"I felt so strongly in my religious belief that I believed that the government should recognize what I believed in my own faith," Angelo told Headlee. "And also, politically, I always told myself that this was bad for kids, that kids needed both a mother and a father, otherwise somehow they would be horribly ruined for life. And as Louis is saying, if you actually start talking to the people that you're talking about, it's hard to hold on to that view."

Angelo went on to note that there is diversity of opinion and practice about marriage as a religious sacrament, with some churches offering marriage to same-sex couples and others refusing it.

"I think that ought to continue," Angelo said. "We're a country of free religion. However, I don't think the government ought to decide through law who is right in this particular discussion" and prevent gay and lesbian families from obtaining civil marriages.

Marinelli said that the response from his fellow Republicans to his change of heart had been "largely disapproving," adding, "they're deeply committed to their faith, and I think that's a problem we need to address in our party as Republicans. We need to have an open debate about separating the church from the state."

The Political 'Echo Chamber'

But such a debate might be hard to have when the opposition is unwilling to entertain different points of view. Angelo related an encounter with a group of anti-gay individuals who "came up to me and basically had a pre-set speech that they gave me. And as I tried to respond to them, they walked away.... without wanting to hear what I had to say in response to that. That's been a huge issue on politics right now: basically, the echo chamber we all live in, where we want to hang out and talk with people we agree with all the time, and we don't even want to talk to folks who oppose us or at least listen to what they have to say."

But Angelo held out hope for dialogue in the future.

"There is a lot of underground support for this, and people are just going to have to step out and start taking the heat and saying it's okay, and then allowing other Republicans to say, Okay, I'm going to step out publicly and say what I truly believe."

Angelo did not go into his campaign for marriage parity naively. In the wake of the passage of Proposition 8 in California, anti-gay groups claimed that "supporters of traditional marriage" were being "intimidated" by gay thugs. (In point of fact, there were thousands of anti-Prop 8 demonstrations around the country, almost all of which were entirely peaceful.) But Angelo understood from the outset that "intimidation" is a two-way street.

"One of the things we are going to come up against is that people, conservative Republicans who are in favor of marriage equality, get intimidated," Angelo said in an June 1 interview with the Iowa Independent, just before the official launch of Iowa Republicans for Freedom.

Angelo went on to recount that "[P]eople have been successfully intimidated out of showing up at meetings -- even those who are saying they are willing to agree to disagree on this particular issue. It can get pretty heated."

In a followup article the very next day, the Independent reported on how several Republican officials had posted their opposition on Angelo's Facebook page, with one individual resorting to arguments about marriage equality leading to group marriages and incest, while another dismissed Angelo's newly formed organization as "evil."

"Jeff, religion aside, I can't support you on this one," wrote Dallas County Recorder Chad Airhart, who went on to ask, " 'if' the [state supreme] court is correct to say [a state version of] DOMA is not constitutional, then what say you about polygamy and incest marriage, say to your child or sibling. I view this matter as a very slippery slope."

Experience provides no legitimacy for such concerns, however. The nation's first legal same-sex marriages took place in Massachusetts seven years ago, with no sign of incest or polygamy on the horizon.

Kim Lehman, who represents Iowa on the Republican National Committee, offered an even more tenuous argument against marriage equality.

"It's not the first time someone took the side of evil with a smile," she wrote on Angelo's wall. "Perversion isn't new Jeff, it dates back pretty far and ends up in the same place every time. You're not going up against Republicans or conservatives. Indeed, you are taking a stand against your Creator. Not too much more to be said except it's never too late to repent."

"Each of these individuals, by virtue of their elected official status, serve as spokespersons for Republicans throughout the state," the Independent noted. "Due to her election by delegates to the state convention, Lehman is especially in a position not only to serve as the voice of Iowa Republicans, but to carry their message to the national level."

But in another state, one former Republican National Committee member spoke out for marriage equality, joining Angelo and Marinelli as a conservative in favor of equality for same-sex couples.

Ken Mehlman, formerly the chair of the RNC, addressed New York state lawmakers on June 6. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said that he supports marriage equality and hopes to make it a signature accomplishment of his tenure; the state's equality organizations, meantime, have formed a coalition in order to streamline and consolidate their efforts and maximize their effectiveness.

"Former Vice President Cheney said it, 'freedom means freedom for everybody,' " Mehlman said during a press conference in Albany, the New York Daily News reported on June 6. "Letting two adults who love each other get married, strengthens and promotes families," Mehlman added, in direct refutation of a claim often made by anti-gay conservatives: That allowing same-sex couples to wed would somehow erode the institutions of marriage and family.

Though Mehlman shares conservative political views with Angelo and Marinelli, there is one crucial difference: The former RNC Chairman is gay. Mehlman emerged from the closet almost a year ago. But it was his conservative credentials, and the resonance between conservative principles and the GLBT equality movement, that Mehlman stressed.

"In terms of Republican values and principles, when you think about it, a party that stands for freedom, a party that wants to promote more families and family values, and a party that tries to live by The Golden Rule, it seems to be me for all those reasons ought to be supportive of this issue," Mehlman told the press.

Mehlman said that this was the message he had taken to the state lawmakers he had met with reminding them that the right to self-determination free from government meddling was a sharing of both gay and conservative "interests and also the Republican principles."