Remember that meme where red states are "real America" and (mostly blue) coastal states aren't? My immediate reaction to the Iowa Supreme Court ruling overturning Iowa's ban on marriage was that now that this has happened in Iowa, maybe the political class might shift a little, given how it considers places like Iowa to be real and coastal states (where, you know, most of the people live) somehow fake. Then I read this almost immediately afterwards:
The state GOP is already ratcheting up for a Constitutional amendment banning marriage, of course. The soonest that can be on the ballot is 2012.
"I think it's significant because Iowa is considered a Midwest state in the mainstream of American thought," Socarides, a senior political assistant for Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin in the early 1990s, said Thursday. "Unlike states on the coasts, there's nothing more American than Iowa."Still comin' right out and saying it! So don't think that's gone. Iowa: Real America. Coast states: fakey aliens, probably traitors, to be ignored.
The state GOP is already ratcheting up for a Constitutional amendment banning marriage, of course. The soonest that can be on the ballot is 2012.