Laura Belin's latest post at Bleeding Heartland --- "Iowa Republicans didn't always push anti-LGBTQ bills. What changed?" --- seems especially timely this morning (follow the link to read).
After all, Republicans in the Iowa Legislature launched the week --- after devoting much time and energy earlier in the session to targeting transgender folks --- by introducing a constitutional amendment that would declare marriage to be a man-woman thing (House Joint Resolution 8) and a parallel bill (House File 508) that would declare Iowa exempt from federal marriage law should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Obergefell v Hodges.
In short, Belin answers the "what changed?" question with three responses: Governor Kim Reynolds has been using trans issues to build her political brand, the conservative noise machine has been pushing trans panic, and business lobby groups have been missing in action. There's also a useful appendix listing anti-LGBTQ+ proposals.
I spent a little time yesterday learning more about the eight sponsors of Joint Resolution 8: Brad Sherman (Williamsburg); Luana Stoltenberg (Davenport); Mark Cisneros (Muscatine); Helena Hayes (New Sharon); Zach Dieken (Granville); Skyler Wheeler (Hull); Mark Thompson (Clarion); and Thomas Gerhold (Atkins).
My theory is that much of this demonizing can be tracked to the GOP's new role as noise machine for right-wing religionists --- and I wasn't disappointed.
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