Matt McCoy, an openly gay senator in Iowa is introducing a marriage bill that would make marriage a gender-neural affair in the recently-blue Midwest state. It's worded pretty innocently, increasing odds of the bill passing and McCoy brings up the fact that gay marriage would be a boost to the state's economy. Now, we're not going to take any joy in the country's dwindling economy, but if there's no atheists in foxholes, we're curious to see how many biggots there are in recessions.
"The bill would remove words such as 'husband' and 'wife' from the state's laws, replacing them with 'spouse'.
The legislation means that if the Iowa Supreme Court was to rule that the state’s Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional, same-sex marriage would be legal in Iowa and the language in laws would have to reflect that.
In an interview with Radio Iowa's O Kay Henderson, McCoy said: “I think it’s a good bill and it’s something that shouldn’t be controversial. We should just be thinking about how this is all going to work once Iowa becomes a Mecca for gay marriage.”
In answer to the question of whether the state will become a Mecca for gay marriage, McCoy commented: “I think it’d be good for the economy.”
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McCoy is CUTE.
too bad McCoy isn't in Nevada… there's a state that truly could use the tourism boom from legalized gay marriage (and would mean a merely unpleasant two hour drive for me rather than a hellish flight to Iowa ;) )
This is change I can believe in Iowa, welcome to the blue column. Love the new economy, yes it sucks for a lot of people, but democrats, progressives and lgbt would be idiots to not take advantage of it. Some of these things we have been waiting decades for the opportunity to present itself. Now is the time, "while the world is falling apart".
@Mike – sadly I think Nevada's heyday has already peaked.
Japhy is hot.
For the record, we aren't recently gay, and Iowa City has one of the largest per capita gay populations in the U.S., not to mention an extremely safe environment environment for the gay community. I will say that we joined as a blue state 10 years ago with the election of Tom Vilsack after far too many years of Branstand, but it's not as if it was a recent development from the last election. Having lived in rural Iowa as well as Iowa City, it's not just an Iowa City fluke – in a small high school (maybe 100 people per grade), we had a dozen or so open gay or lesbian students when I graduated, and several more who have come out since then – this is in comparison to just across the river in Illinois, where several of my gay friends, long out of high school and the house, sill can't come out to anyone in their home towns. I guess we Iowans feel that dictating who it is and not is to be okay with shouldn't be decided by the government or religious biases, but by the individual
Correction: we aren't recently blue, not recently gay. I guess I got thinking faster than I was typing. I saw the mistake after I hit "submit" so I wanted to make the correction here