Democratic Cowardice in Iowa - Governor Caves to the Republicans

As a gay man and half of a long-term gay couple, I'm not surprised when a Republican Mayor, Governor, Senator, Congressman/woman, or President reaches into the grab bag of irrational hatred and pulls out the gay card.

How could I be?  We've seen it again and again, and it's gotta have its own chapter, if not three or four, in the Rovian Playbook.

But rarely do I see one of our own, a Democrat, not only trying to dance on the fine line between courtship and rebuttal on the gay marriage issue, but actively leading the charge against us.

Such is the sad case in Iowa, where Democratic Governor Chet Culver, responding to a lower court ruling against marriage discrimination and to a pending Iowa Supreme Court decision, is beating the drums of anti-gay bigotry and pushing for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in Iowa:

"We'll do whatever it takes to protect marriage between a man and a woman," Culver said recently, urging the Supreme Court to hurry up its ruling so the Iowa legislature can settle things once and for all.

When I read that a governor of a midwestern state was advocating a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, I wasn't at all surprised.  When I found out he was a democrat, I was stunned.

Am I the only one out here who thinks it's time to take the old RINO moniker (Republican in Name Only) and flip it around?  It seems like we were sold a bill of goods in the 2006 election, when we added all these "middle of the road" or "blue dog" democrats - most of them are barely democrats at all, with their opposition to gay marriage and abortion rights, and most recently, the ten or so in the senate who crossed party lines to help defend the rights of the telecom companies to spy on us without fear of reprisal.  Is this the new face of the Democratic Party, where individual rights are forgotten in the rush to protect multinational conglomerates from the little people?

What's even sadder here is that the Republicans tried before to get this amendment passed through the Iowa legislature, and even though they controlled the Iowa House and were tied with Democrats in the Senate, they were unable to get this mean-spirited piece of legislation pushed through.

Now that Democrats control both the legislature and the executive branches, you'd think that their chances were nil.  But the difference is that the previous governor, Tom Vilsack, while against gay marriage, was pro civil union and respected gay and lesbian relationships.  And he was willing to stand against the forces of intolerance when it came to amending the Iowa constitution.

Apparently, Governor Culver has no spine - rather than do the right thing and risk public anger, he's willing to not just aid the Republicans in their efforts to enshrine discrimination in the Iowa Constitution, but to actually lead the charge against a group of Iowans who are unable to defend themselves against this government intrusion.

We all know what happened to the dinosaurs - let's hope these DINO's eventually have to face the consequences of their own actions, and become extinct too.

--Scott