Obviously Christopher Rants is the biggest impediment to extending the civil rights code to cover the GLBT community, but there isn’t much we can do about him (other than send even fewer Republicans back to the state house next year).  There are some legislators that need to hear from concerned Iowans about their opposition or indecision on the bill currently bottled up in the house.

These Democrats are either currently planning to vote no or refuse to take a stand one way or the other:

Dolores Mertz

Dawn Pettengill

Brian Quirk

Paul Shomshor

These GOP representatives are believed to be supportive:

Chuck Gipp (Retiring in 2008)

Linda Miller (Voted for it in committee)

Bill Schickel

Tami Weincek

You can call all of them at (515) 281-3221.

This is urgent – if anything is going to happen on this bill, it is going to happen in the next couple of days.  GLBTers have been a model team players for Iowa Democrats, supporting our candidates without hesitation and with very little demanded in return.  While Democrats have been successful in the minority at stopping a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, now that we are in the majority we ought to be working to make Iowa a more equal state.

It’s not like gay activists are being unreasonable here.  They aren’t asking for gay marriage, or even civil unions.  Just one tiny change that says that it is wrong to discriminate against someone based on their sexual orientation.  The fact that there is any difficulty at all getting Democrats to vote for that is depressing, and the fact that not one single Republican is willing to stand up for the principle is appalling.