Opponents promise to push for amendment
By TONY LEYS tleys@dmreg.com
April 03, 2009 06:04 AM

Conservative activists vowed Friday to push for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between one man and one woman. Chuck Hurley, president of the Iowa Family Policy Center, said legislators should debate the issue either in the waning weeks of their regular session or in a special session. To get a constitutional amendment on the public ballot, lawmakers would have to approve the idea once, then again after a general election. The soonest such an amendment could take effect would be 2012.

Hurley said the Legislature should have approved such an amendment years ago. That would have headed off the lawsuit that led to Friday's Supreme Court decision, he said. He said legislative leaders contended in the past that no constitutional amendment was needed, because the state already had a law banning gay marriage. "They said 'The court's not going to overturn the statute. You're crazy,' " he recalled. "Well, now who's crazy?" After the Supreme Court's ruling was announced, Hurley and Baptist minister Keith Ratliff led about 20 gay-marriage opponents from the Judicial Building to the Statehouse. They hoped to meet with House Speaker Pat Murphy to request a debate on the constitutional amendment. They rapped on the Dubuque Democrat's door, but he was gone. The activists' chances appeared to dim later Friday, when Murphy and Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, put out a press release extolling the court's decision. "When all is said and done, we believe the only lasting question about today's events will be why it took us so long," they wrote. In an interview, Gronstal made it clear that Hurley and his allies face long odds in demanding a legislative debate on the issue. "I will leave the option for my members to make suggestions," Gronstal said, "but it is exceedingly unlikely I would call up a constitutional amendment." Craig Overton of Pleasant Hill, who accompanied Hurley and Ratliff to the Capitol, carried a homemade sign saying "Same sex animals don't mate," and "Culver, man up." Chris Nitzschke, operations director for the Iowa Family Policy Center, asked Overton to put down the sign. Nitzschke explained that although his group wants gay marriage banned, the sign wasn't projecting the right image. "Oftentimes, it's not just what you say, it's how you say it," Nitzschke told Overton. "It's not out of hate that we do it, it's out of compassion." Overton was reluctant to put down the sign. In an interview, he said he was outraged that a few Supreme Court justices could decide such an important issue. "This country's going down the tubes," he said. "We the people haven't been heard." Register staff writer Jennifer Jacobs contributed to this article.