THIS ESSAY RAN ON THE IOWA STANDARD WEBSITE, RECENTLY:

Iowa's Ernst twisted on marriage issue

by DC Larson

Iowa's junior senator Joni Ernst is one of what can be called the "Twisted Twelve" - Republican senators who voted with Democrats to pass the same sex-marriage-countenancing Respect For Marriage Act.

The union of man and woman has throughout world history been the solid standard. And it is the reliable building block upon which stable societies exist and prosper.

Wikipedia cites the Pew Research Center in noting that 19% of US marriages in 2019 were interracial ones. I am in an interracial marriage, and resent being classed with oddball assemblages.

Interracial unions were ruled to be constitutionally protected by the Supreme Court's 1967 Loving vs. Virginia decision. Such marriages enjoy protection under the 14th Amendment's equal protection and due process clauses. 

The Obergefell decision also cited the 14th Amendment. Wrongly, in my view. It did dirt to legitimate man-woman interracial loves.

It is to be hoped that the Trump-impacted Court will revisit Obergefell.

In 2021,  Gallup found 94% approval of interracial marriages. Popular sentiment should not dictate individual choices like marriage. But this attitude is noteworthy. 

There are today no serious efforts to restrict interracial marriages, nor can such be reasonably envisioned. 

It is deceitful to seek to establish legitimacy for homosexual "marriages" by linking them with interracial ones -- the time-honored unions of man and woman. I call that 'surfboarding to unwarranted status atop others' struggle.'

For me, as well, there is a religious component to opposition to homosexuality. My church, the Catholic one, teaches in its catechism (2357) that homosexual acts are "intrinscally disordered." 

"They are contrary to the natural law," the catechism continues. "They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuinely affective and sexual complimentarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved."

No such admonitions are made regarding interracial acts; indeed, racial justice is a Catholic Church value.

The language in the Iowa Republican Party platform is unambiguous, as observed by The Iowa Standard.

"Liberty Section, number 13. We believe that traditional, two-parent (one male (XY) and one female (XX)), marriage-based families are the foundation of a stable, enduring, and healthy civilization. We encourage the repeal of any laws allowing any marriage that is not between one natural man and one natural woman."

As The Iowa Standard further notes, Ernst voted in support of the "(Dis)Respect For Marriage Act" no fewer than three times. (Twice for cloture, and then for the legislation.) 

Each of those votes was a slap at the Iowa Republican Party platform and bible-believing Iowans. 

"Shut up, hick, peasant Iowans," the Standard wrote Ernst essentially said with her votes. "You're backward. You're on the wrong side of history. Quit being bigots, homophobes."

Iowa Representatives Ashley Hinson and Marionette Miller-Meeks also voted for homosexual "marriages" and stood against the Iowa Republican Party platform. They, too, merit vigorous criticism on this substantive point.

Ernst was in November unanimously censured by the Mahaska County, Iowa GOP Central Committee. 

"There is nothing more foundational to our society than marriage instituted by God between one man and one woman," stated the Mahaska committee. "Senator Ernst directly opposes the expressed will of God and of her constituents and is hereby censured for her vote."

Ernst was also censured by the Pocahontas County GOP. In all, seven county GOP central committees have censured Ernst.

Like Hinson and Miller-Meeks, Ernst went against not only the state platform but the citizens she represents and who elected her to office. Including me.

Their shameful votes may play well at Washington woke cocktail parties, but they do not accurately represent the good people of Iowa.

Nor can interracial unions legitimately be linked to homosexual ones. The former should not be thought vulnerable by association with the faulty latter.

Waterloo writer DC Larson counts among freelance credits American Thinker, Western Journal, and others.

 This essay of mine ran on the American Thinker website, last week.

Trump America's new John Doe 

by DC Larson                                              

"We can't win the old ballgame unless we have teamwork," said Gary Cooper as John Doe, in the 1941  Frank Capra classic Meet John Doe. "And that's where every John Doe comes in. It's up to him to get together with his teammate. And your teammate, my friends, is the guy next door to you."

Meet the new John Doe.

Donald Trump is not a hardscrabble everyman plucked from on-the-road poverty. But he does offer the same inspirational quality as the Doe character. 

Trump evokes similarly stirring calls to national pride, to new unity of citizens in common struggles. 

We are Americans. We don't take orders from foreign interests. We aren't impressed when overseas politicians curse at us, outraged at the concept of regular Americans actually standing up. 

As the old song advised, "You run your mouth, and I'll run my business, brother!"

Trump events across America are packed by laughing, roaring, defiantly exuberant tens of thousands. Feeling proud and beholden to no one is liberating. 

It feels good again to be an American.

Fire marshals turn away thousands more who are eager to hear the candidate's rousing message of resurgent national strength and noble aspiration. 

What is evident, given the tremendous nation-wide outpouring of feverish, grassroots support for the idea of a people-vs-indifferent-establishment movement, is that the vital spirit of American individuality and independence breathes, still.

That spirit is what first raised our nation to global pre-eminence. 

The political status quo didn't make America exceptional. Nor did its studiously groomed, deceitful toadies in the fake news media. 

We the people did that. And we can do it, again. 

"I am a unifier," Trump once declared. "And I would love to see the Republican Party, and everybody, get together and unify. When we unify, there's nobody -- nobody -- that's going to beat us!"

In 2022, America has its new John Doe. 

Iowa writer DC Larson counts among freelance credits Daily Caller and Western Journa