Iowa’s Hate Factory
The one with golden domes
For most of my nearly 50 years of living in Des Moines, I took pride driving by the Iowa Statehouse. The refurbished golden domes reflected power, history and tolerance – a shining beacon on a hill overlooking our city, and the entire state.
My family would join tens of thousands for the Yankee Doodle Pops concert before the Fourth of July. Sitting in lawn chairs, listening to fabulous music, enjoying fireworks over the growing city skyline, knowing the historic building behind us ensured the foundation that gave us a quality of life we could appreciate.
Perhaps the high point of pride in our statehouse was the night in 2012 when President Barack Obama made the final campaign stop of his career.
It was the evening before the 2012 presidential election, as Obama ran for his second term. He could have spent that last night of his last campaign anywhere in America. But he came back to Iowa – to say thank you to the state that launched a black man into the White House. With the beautifully lit Iowa statehouse in the background, Bruce Springsteen played a few songs at the corner of East 4th and Locust. Then right as the 10:00 pm news started, the president hopped on stage – a few feet from his first campaign office.
The Washington Post described it as a “nostalgic” return to “the place that launched his improbable run to the White House. The decision to bid farewell to the campaign trail with a nighttime appearance in Des Moines’ historic East Village was as symbolic as it was strategic.”
It was a magical night.
The magic is long gone
These days, when I drive by the Iowa Statehouse, I am tempted to raise my middle finger at those golden domes that have turned into smokestacks spewing hatred, bigotry and intolerance over our city and state. How could so much have changed over a dozen years?
I hung my head in shame Thursday when the New York Times sent out a national push alert that the Iowa legislature passed a bill to make Iowa the first state in the country to remove transgender Iowans as a protected class. Republicans fast-tracked this hateful bill. It was introduced only a week before the vote, giving opponents little time to organize. To introduce such a significant piece of legislation on a Thursday, speed it through committees and a floor vote the following Thursday tells us all we need to know about how Republicans knew this was going to look bad – so why drag out the process?
Their silence speaks volumes
The only Republican legislators who spoke in favor of the bill were the floor managers – one in the House and one in the Senate. The rest of them sat silently – too afraid to be caught on camera voicing their support for hate. What cowards. (Five House Republicans voted with all Democrats against the bill.)
Democrats in the House and Senate tried to reason with the Republican super-majority, but they failed. Democratic Senator Tony Bisignano of Des Moines made an outstanding speech on the floor, and I urge you to watch it here (You’ll need to log in to Facebook)
Bisignano nailed Republicans supporting the bill. “What have they (transgender Iowans) ever done to you? Most of you don’t even know somebody who’s transgender. You don’t even know them. But you hate them. You have to hate them because you would not do what you’re doing today if you didn’t. But we’ll say a nice prayer to start the day. We always do. Then we proceed to violate people over and over again. All they want is their fair shake in life. They want to be like you. They want to live like you. Something wrong with that?”
Over in the house, Republicans introduced this bill and rammed it through in the presence of their newest state representative, Amie Wichtendahl, the first openly transgender person in the Iowa legislature. How they could ever look Wichtendahl in the eye from this point forward is beyond me. A truly hateful thing to do when she is standing right there among them.
And before the ink on the bill could dry, Governor Kim Reynolds signed it into law - in a private ceremony on a Friday afternoon. No cameras there to record the hateful deed, and no reporters asking why she hates transgender Iowans.
Although protestors Thursday numbered in the thousands, Iowa businesses sat on the sidelines. The Des Moines Register reports that major employers in Iowa who might normally oppose this kind of discriminatory legislation remained oddly quiet this year. Good luck to those businesses who try to recruit workers to move to Iowa if those folks value diversity and a supportive place to live. They should look elsewhere, because their prospects look bleak in Iowa.
What’s next
Don’t expect conservative Republicans to stop now. The same bill that granted civil rights protections to transgender Iowans in 2007 also added gay and lesbian Iowans as a protected class. Gays and lesbians have every reason to fear that the GOP is coming after them next.
The Republicans strutting around under those golden domes will not rest until they have erased every person of color or sexual identity from the fabric of our state. If you’re white, straight and Christian, you are welcome here in the shadow of our beautiful statehouse. You’re just like us!
For the rest of you, the Iowa statehouse is now a symbol – a gleaming, unmistakable symbol in the sky – that you should seek your freedom and fortunes somewhere else.
Proud to be a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, bringing opinion voices from across Iowa at a time when traditional media are cutting back on editorials. Click here to see our roster of writers.
I know it’s easy to feel frustrated and angry about what’s happening, but while we might not be able to slam the brakes on bad legislation, we can control how we treat the people around us. Now’s the time to double down on kindness—especially toward our transgender friends and neighbors. Respect, understanding, and a whole lot of welcoming can go a long way. Laws may come and go, but the way we show up for each other every day?...that’s what can really make a difference.
I only have one edit:
“If you’re a straight, white, Evangelical male”
Once they’ve erased our gay & lesbian neighbors, women are next. Dobbs is only the beginning of that fever dream.
Iowa has become Gomorrah. God destroyed Gomorrah for its wickedness, yes. But that wickedness wasn’t being tolerant & accepting of homosexuality. It was the sin of being inhospitable to strangers.
From Ezekiel 16:49: the city “had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy,” including the angels, who should have been honored guests.