Gay marriage will be issue in Iowa House special election Daily Kos

Iowans in House district 90 will elect a new state representative in a special election on September 1, and the Republican candidate appears to be planning to make same-sex marriage a major campaign issue.

The seat opened up when State Representative John Whitaker, a Democrat, accepted a position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Republicans didn’t even run a candidate against Whitaker in 2008, but Iowa House district 90 has been competitive in the recent past. The southeastern Iowa district contains all of Van Buren County and parts of Wapello and Jefferson counties, including the Fairfield area (home to Maharishi University and the so-called “Silicorn Valley”).

The Democratic candidate for the special election is Curt Hanson, a retired driver’s education teacher who has won various teaching awards. Hanson plans to campaign on bread-and-butter issues: jobs, health care, education, and balancing the budget.

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Cracks in the System: Iran There and Gay Rights Here

Originally published on June 18, 2009 by Yo Mama For Obama

This post will be a continuation of my last one, dealing with the people’s insurgency in Iran and the fight for equal rights here in America.

yomamaforobama’s diary :: ::

No surprise: it is being reported that Ayatollah Khamenei’s rival Mullah, Rafsanjani, will be supporting the massive protest in Iran today. Quite frankly, this election dispute is a contest, a personal power struggle, between the two Ayatollahs. Whether we have Ahmadinejad or Mousavi as figurehead Presidents is almost immaterial. Their ideology and politics are essentially the same, although Ahmadinejad’s incendiary fervor is definitely off the deep end. Their underlying beliefs, both national and international, are identical. It is the Mullahs who rule Iran. The people’s protests must move from election fraud to throwing out the corrupt clerics who rule Iran.

Dan Rather was on MSNBC yesterday, and he was not very optimistic about the outcome of this Iran uprising. He said that similar to this uprising, the Czech revolt of 1956, the Chinese attempt at protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and the attempted battle for freedom in Burma in 2007 were all crushed by their respective governments. Included in these assaults on the protesters were serious, and successful, attempts to quash any media reports of the protests plus the government’s retaliatory responses. True: in 1956, we did not have the internet, cell phones or Twitter. Basically the same holds true for 1989. Nonetheless, the media were thrown out of those countries and thus any reports of the events were not forthcoming. So is Iran trying to play that same game today. Not only have reporters been warned off covering the disputed elections, but Iran has cut off most access to the internet and cell phones. But long live Twitter: they can not shut off that service. Not yet. Our very own State Department has requested, and been granted, that Twitter defer their shutdown for maintenance scheduled for this week so that the world can have some access to the events in Iran. As Hillary Clinton said recently, and I paraphrase, “I don’t know a Twitter from a Tweeter, but Twitter has been a window to the world as to what is going on in Iran.” In the New York Times today, Op-Ed contributor, Nicholas Kristof equates “tweets” as the bullets of modern warfare.

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WATCH In His Own Words: What Obama Promised Gay Americans

President Obama surprised and disappointed many this past week when his Department of Justice defended the Defense Of Marriage Act in court. Daily Kos’ Jed Lewison has compiled clips from the campaign in which Obama forcefully advocated equal rights for gay Americans and stated his support for strong civil unions with all the benefits of marriage. Watch: