Well, realize this. %60 of Iowans under 30 support full marriage equality and %75 want full rights for gay couples (i.e., %15 would oppose using the word “marriage”). I’d venture to speculate that the percentages increase with education. I’m a graduate of Coe and had ecstatic “yay Iowa” messages flood my facebook from many of my fellow graduates that moved out of state. These are highly talented people in fields like biotech and information science. They tend not to go in for the whole religious fundamentalism thing.

There are economic consequences for the state to not listening to our young people on this. If it faced a referendum (though rights should not be subject to tyranny of majority) it might go %55-%45 against, but there’s a huge generational divide there.

We’ve already got King saying don’t come to Iowa to get married, as if we couldn’t use the influx to our economy. If conservatives want to have a future in this country they need to stop the whole “culture war” thing and start thinking more practically. There is no “assault on heterosexual marriage”. I’m not about to leave my wife for a man now that it’s legal. Among young Iowans, the culture war rhetoric of the right is just fodder for jokes.