Marla Stevens and Iowa Legislators

I have volunteered to publicize an email exchange that Marla had with her Iowa state legislators. Minor editing by me. Marla's email address has been left in because she is a prominent activist and lobbyist.

- Holly

From: MandPStevens@aol.com
Sent: Monday, April 11, 2005 12:40 PM
To: Ward, Pat [LEGIS]
Cc: Other Iowa legislators

Dear. Sen. Ward:

Currently in the United States, same-sex couples in long-term, committed relationships pay higher taxes and are denied basic protections and rights granted to married couples, not to mention that they suffer the indignity of being second class citizens whose government is denying them equal access to the law and the even more important social and interpersonal intangibles that flow from inclusion in the ranks of the married. We should not have this in Iowa law, much less enshrine this discrimination in the Iowa Constitution.

I have noticed the lack of a fiscal note, noting that the lack of the inevitable cost of defending such an incendiary amendment in courts as high as the U.S. Supreme Court was not factored in, nor was the cost to the state of caring for the children, seniors, and disabled seeing as their families would have no legal responsibility to do so, not to mention the additional cost to the state of bringing in business and training the replacements of workers due to the reluctance of both to invest or remain in places so hostile to attracting the best and the brightest, nor the cost of prosecuting and incarcerating those of us who will not cooperate in our own oppression by lying about our marriages on government forms such as tax filings. Is this a mere oversight or were you and the rest of the legislators pushing this smelly offal intentionally ignoring predictable negative consequences of this legislation to pursue partisan political and theocratic goals?

Do you really want to make the 'Daniel Pearl' relationship I already have with my state government -- where it attempts to force me to lie about something so personally important and dear to me on government forms such as tax filings about the civil marriage I broke no law when I entered into (lies my wife and I cannot morally make) at peril of criminal prosecution -- due to the state's DOMA, permanent?

Do you really want to take away hope of justice for the hundreds of thousands of LGBT Iowans and further paint Iowa as a hate state unfit for creative, intelligent people in general, increasing the already critical brain and population drain, making Iowa even less attractive to modern, nonpolluting new business than it already is, and making the notion of Iowa as a viable convention destination even more laughable than ever?

Do you really want to demean the Iowa Constitution's protections of minorities from the tyranny of the majority by putting an entire class of people's fundamental right of civil marriage up for a popular vote? Do you have so little regard for the oath of office you took as to do that?

Do you really want to do something that's statistically meanest to children and senior citizens and people of color?

Do you really want to have a legislative legacy that will leave you, probably within your own lifetime, looking as despicably bigoted and shortsighted and ignorant and ugly as Strom Thurmond and Lester Maddox and George Wallace ended up being considered in theirs?

Even if this becomes a part of the Iowa Constitution, it won't stay there long as time is determined in the perspective of history. Either it will be overturned by federal courts or a future generation that has grown up with its LGBT people not hiding in unwarranted but heavily enforced shame so that that generation understands their LGBT fellow humans are just that -- humans deserving of all of the rights we accord humans. But, in the meantime, real families will suffer needlessly -- and it will be your fault if you push this hate amendment to the floor and/or vote to pass it.

Do you 'get it' that this is not trivial - that you cannot treat us as throwaway subhumans without consequence?

We're beyond just the normal consequences that should make you think twice before consuming food or drink prepared in establishments with gay staff or wonder why your computer never seems to get fixed or always question why that haircut or color job didn't turn out particularly well or why your stay in the hospital or wait time at the medical clinic seems just a bit longer and a bit less pleasant than for those who haven't figuratively spat at the gay staff -- if you weren't refused service in the first place as you should have been befitting your Herod-like behavior.

No, as this amendment is nothing if not the imposition of a certain religiously motivated view on others against their will, this requires not only earthly consequences, but spiritual ones. So, if you do not 'get it' and instead either push this to the floor or vote for it or both, consider yourself cursed. If you do either or both, may the pain you have caused in others be visited on you and yours, may you know not one day's peace nor one night's rest, may everything you touch crumble and everything and everyone you care about turn on you and cause you the most excruciating pain imaginable. May this curse follow your genes into eternity until your heirs beg the forgiveness of those you've harmed and right the wrong you've done. May this curse extend to all who join in the actions it covers.

So must it be.

Mrs. Marla Randolph Stevens
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In a message dated 4/11/2005 4:21:13 PM Eastern Daylight Time, pat.ward@legis.state.ia.us writes:

Dear Mrs. Stevens,

I understand this is a very personal issue and I also appreciate the strong opinion you have regarding this proposal. What I cannot understand is the demeaning nature in which your email was written – I believe we can all agree to disagree at times and make our point, without getting personal and accusing others of being wrong.

With that said, I want you to know that it is extremely unlikely that the Iowa Senate will debate the bill this year.

…Pat Ward
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From: MandPStevens@aol.com
Sent: Monday, April 11, 2005 12:40 PM
To: Ward, Pat [LEGIS]
Cc:

Sen. Ward:

But you are wrong. And, if you found this, merely an opinion and curse, demeaning, you have only but begun to scratch the surface of what it's like to live under your thumb -- to have you with power ready and waiting to further drop the hammer of it into our lives.

I was already aware when I wrote you that the amendment is as good as dead this year but, as the Iowa DOMA exists and you have done nothing to remedy its wrongs -- only attempted to permanentize them -- that hammer has already pounded on us and a reprieve of its becoming worse hardly matters. We are justifiably, righteously angry and it's past time you understand that there is no room in such outrages for polite disagreement.

You are a tyrant abusing the power of your office and misusing the law to create havoc in my life. I'm not at all displeased that having a bit of a mirror held up to you so that you have a chance to see yourself as we see you proves discomforting -- that I've asked you to make the trek to your personal attic of shame to view your own Portrait of Dorian Grey and that the sight of it oozily suppurating makes you squirm.

It is personal, very personal. I see that you are attempting to cling to what I can only hope are rapidly disintegrating shreds of illusion that this is just some guiltlessly done, relatively harmless bit of acceptable oppression -- that my wife's and my and our people's lives are just so much workaday political fodder for your munching pleasure -- that, instead, you're still trying to deny grasping that it is outright despotism for which you are personally responsible and for which there is an accounting due.

Until you 'get it' enough to dedicate yourself to removing the state DOMA's tangible evidence of your despicable opinion that my marriage is worth less than your marriage -- that my wife, my people, and I are less fully human than you, trust me that you'll continue to be reminded of the old truism, 'no justice -- no peace'.

And the curse stands.

With all the sincerity I can muster,

Mrs. Marla Randolph Stevens