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Health & Fitness

The Family Leadership Summit: Finding Common Ground

One Iowa Executive Director Donna Red Wing discusses her trip to the Family Leadership Summit, and finding common ground with the opposition.

I had no idea what to expect last weekend when I entered the Stephens Auditorium for the Family Leadership Summit in Ames. I was an attendee at the event organized by anti-equality organization The Family Leader, a summit “designed to educate and mobilize the conservative base regarding worldview application and issues that impact the family.” I was there as a spectator, to be civil and respectful, and to listen to what our opposition had to say. Not surprisingly, my fellow attendees at the summit were a friendly group.  “Iowa Nice” was practiced in this room. At least in the beginning.

Eventually, though, the so-called “Iowa Nice” began to wear thin. As 2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum took the stage, he urged the crowd to stop giving money to colleges if they “pervert the minds of our children.” David Nobel, former director of Summit Ministries, continued this insulting diatribe when he referred to the former Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the U.S. Department of Education as Kevin “Queering Education” Jennings.

Evangelical Del Tackett, former president of the Focus on the Family Institute, wove together an extraordinary narrative around the “horrific consequences for those who defy God’s designs,” and focused on those who defy “the design for marriage and the family.” Conservative columnist Doug Napier of the legal group Alliance Defending Freedom claimed that we should condemn “dangerous social experiments” brought on by those “who have made destructive sexual choices.”  The Family Leader CEO and president Bob Vander Plaats declared, “Absolutely tolerance is absolute chaos.”

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Speaker after speaker fired up the assembled. It was a long list, too, one that included Governor Terry Branstad and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds; Iowa’s Senior Senator Chuck Grassley; Texas Senator Ted Cruz and his father Reverend Rafael Cruz; Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage, a group currently under investigation by the Iowa ethics board for violations of state law during the judicial retention campaign; and, of course, conservative talk show host Jan Mickelson, who in 2010 made grossly inaccurate claims about AIDS and HIV in regards to the LGBT community. Even notorious businessman and TV personality Donald Trump took the stage long enough to clarify his position on marriage equality, among other things: “I am a conservative Republican, I am pro-life, I support ‘traditional marriage’ and the second amendment 100 percent.”

As Executive Director of One Iowa, the state’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) advocacy organization, I was not surprised to hear this kind of anti-equality rhetoric. Everything from marriage equality to the Supreme Court Justices who unanimously upheld equal protection in the 2009 Varnum v. Brien decision were put on trial at the Family Leadership Summit. This is unfortunate, especially considering a majority of Americans now support marriage equality

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I also made it a point to meet with Mr. Vander Plaats for a few minutes during the summit. I introduced myself very cordially and I asked him if we might meet later in the year, perhaps in the fall, to have a civil conversation and to get to know one another better.  Who knows? Maybe Mr. Vander Plaats and I could find some common ground. I know, for instance, that the Family Leader is concerned with the safety of children and the end of human trafficking. That’s definitely something I can support. His response was warm, welcoming, and friendly.

So… what did we learn?  For one, the Family Leader knows how to organize an event.  The logistics were nearly flawless.  The event was consistently on schedule.  Mr. Vander Plaats was a pleasant, smart and sometimes humorous host—he knew his audience very well.  The Family Leadership Summit brought in real star power representing policy and politics, religion, Hollywood, media and business.  And the participants, at least every attendee I spoke to, were civil and good-natured.

We learned that the crosshairs of the summit’s speakers were focused on immigration, reproductive health, and LGBT equality.  From jokes made about southern border ditches built and filled with alligators to conversations targeting immigrants and immigration reform, this faction of conservatism is very serious about “defending our border.” (One border—Canada’s—was not mentioned, coincidentally.)  A woman’s right to make her own health care choices was challenged. And, at times, the LGBT community was incorrectly and outrageously equated with pedophilia, sickness, and evil.

The speakers were passionate and the audience responsive.  They lay out their agenda and it is important that we take note.  As a movement, we are on a trajectory of wins, and our opposition is aware of this. However, we cannot ignore them. We have to be open to civil dialogue, so that we can continue to share our personal stories that will ultimately change hearts and minds.

I look forward to my conversation with Mr. Vander Plaats. I look forward to telling him about my soon-to-be-wife Sumitra, how we’ve been together for 26 years, and how our marriage means something because we live in Iowa. I look forward to hearing more about Mr. Vander Plaats’ own marriage to his wife Darla. I look forward to discussing faith and equality with Mr. Vander Plaats, and learning more about what drives him.

I look forward to reaching common ground. Because that’s where the revolution begins. That’s where we begin to make a difference.
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