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If there were ever a time for Iowa Republicans to tackle the issue of sexual orientation and gender identity being in the state’s civil rights code, this session was it. Iowa is one of just 22 states with those protections in its civil rights code. Iowa and Utah are the only two red states. Others include Oregon, Washington, California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Hawaii, etc.

It is not a list you would expect a state controlled by Republicans to be on, yet here we are.

And it appears, there we will stay.

Republicans failed to move legislation removing gender identity from the civil rights code. There also will not be any bills addressing boys using the girls’ bathroom in schools.

This comes after the state incidents in Pella and Sioux Center as well as the national story of what transpired in Loudon County (Virginia).

But hey, vote Republican.

Every city council and every school board that has had to address this issue has fallen back on the same thing — state law ties their hands. They can’t do anything about that 40-year-old man who thinks he is a woman using the bathroom stall next to your 9-year-old daughter.

But don’t worry, Iowa Republicans. The Republican Iowa House is working on other priorities. You know, like a bill that would require NCAA institutions in Iowa to schedule games against each other at least once each year in each sport.

Yes, that proposed law was granted a subcommittee. No, one protecting your kids from bathroom insanity did not.

Lawmakers received signatures from thousands of Iowans imploring them to act. Didn’t matter.

The incident where the teenage biological female was able to walk around topless at the Pella pool because she identifies as a male gained national attention last year. Didn’t matter.

In November an Iowa judge ruled the GOP-passed law prohibiting taxpayer-funded sex reassignment surgeries was unlawful because — you guessed it — gender identity being in the Iowa Civil Rights Code.

But no. None of that stuff actually matters it seems to the Republicans in the Iowa legislature. And no, Gov. Kim Reynolds certainly has not made this an issue — let alone a priority issue.

Maybe it will matter once a girl gets sexually assaulted in the bathroom by a biological male. Maybe then the lawmakers will think it’s an issue worthy of attention.

Unfortunately, it’s going to be too late for the little girl who has her life ruined due to their inaction.

Who knows. Maybe it will take more than one of those incidents. There’s no telling. It’s not like they can’t see the train that is headed down the tracks.

After all, these Republican legislators seem to be content with sexual orientation being protected as well, despite public efforts to have pedophilia recognized as a sexual orientation.

It’s crazy considering these people work in a building every year with these words painted on the wall: “Nothing which is morally wrong can be politically right.”

It is hard to believe this issue wasn’t at least worthy of a subcommittee “conversation.” It’s here. It’s real. And it isn’t going anywhere.

It appears Iowans have to accept it and get used to it. The Republican Party of Iowa certainly isn’t leading the charge to change anything. And neither are the majority of Republican lawmakers.

How embarrassing.

Author: Jacob Hall

2 COMMENTS

  1. Both sexual orientation and gender identity need to be removed from the Code of Iowa. They are the product of Gov. Vilsack and Gov. Culver. Sexual orientation and gender identity are both “mutable” characteristics, meaning they are subject to change—on the way to and from the restroom, for example. Civil Rights protected status must be reserved only for constitutionally protected rights or immutable characteristics.

    Steve King

  2. We have a problem in the GOP, and that problem is called cowardness. I suggest getting rid of the elephant icon and using the cowardly lion on the Wizzard of Oz. I beginning to think the GOP is part of the LGBTQ base; after all, we are home of the Log Cabin Republicans. I could say more but…

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