Alexandra Rucinski is a patient advocate for Planned Parenthood and an activist for sex education and reproductive rights. Iowa’s near-total abortion ban inspired her to write this commentary. -promoted by desmoinesdem

I vividly remember the only sex-ed class I ever took in high school. A woman who worked for Planned Parenthood came to teach our class. I remember eyeing her with distrust as she talked about things absolutely forbidden to me. I didn’t listen because I felt like I wasn’t supposed to listen.

More Iowa women are running for office in 2018 than ever before, which could lead to record numbers of female state representatives and senators next year.

However, in other meaningful ways, Iowa’s legislature could become less diverse after the November election.

Describing herself as a “pro-life, pro-2nd Amendment, pro-Israel, and pro-Constitution conservative,” Ginny Caligiuri made her quest for the Republican nomination in Iowa’s second Congressional district official today. Her candidacy was no secret; the former state director for the Congressional Prayer Caucus, National Governor’s Prayer Team, and US National Prayer Council had nominating papers out to be signed at the February 5 precinct caucuses and has been making the rounds at GOP county central committee meetings.

Bleeding Heartland profiled Caligiuri in January. You can keep up with her campaign online at GinnyGetsIowa.com, Facebook, or Twitter (at this writing, a protected account).

The announcement for Caligiuri’s kickoff event in Osceola on March 8 noted, “The 2nd District elected Donald Trump, and Ginny plans to help him accomplish what he was elected to do.” That line struck me as a subtle dig at Caligiuri’s competition in the GOP primary. Dr. Christopher Peters is a libertarian-minded Republican; as the IA-02 nominee, he announced in October 2016 that he would not vote for Trump.

I enclose below Caligiuri’s official bio and a map of Iowa’s Congressional districts. According to the latest figures from the Secretary of State’s office, the 24 counties contain 160,891 active registered Democrats, 141,798 Republicans, an 181,740 no-party voters.

The Cook Political Report and Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball both rate this race as a likely Democratic hold for six-term Representative Dave Loebsack. For reasons discussed here, I think Republicans missed their best chance to defeat Loebsack by not targeting his district during the 2016 cycle. Trump carried the 24 counties in IA-02 by 49.1 percent to 45.0 percent, a huge swing from Barack Obama’s 55.8 percent to 42.7 percent margin over Mitt Romney in 2012.

Andrew Duffelmeyer takes on Iowa Republicans’ “just plain wrong attempt to legalize discrimination against our LGBTQ friends” in the name of religious liberty. -promoted by desmoinesdem

The Senate Local Government Committee is set to take up a bill aimed at legalizing discrimination against our LGBTQ friends and neighbors. Such an effort is certainly reprehensible and ought to be soundly defeated. But Senate Study Bill 3171 doesn’t do just that.

The architects of this so-called “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” have created language so vague and broad that it would go far beyond allowing wedding venues, bakeries, or floral shops to refuse service to same-sex couples – the apparent “problem” this bill aims to address, based on subcommittee testimony. The bill would allow people to challenge any law or action of any state or local government on the basis that it infringes on their religious beliefs. The government would then have to satisfy a difficult legal standard to justify that infringement.

Dr. Christopher Peters may soon have a Republican primary rival in Iowa’s second Congressional district. Multiple sources tell Bleeding Heartland that Ginny Caligiuri has been laying the groundwork to seek the GOP nomination and plans to have petitions out for activists to sign at the Republican Party of Iowa’s precinct caucuses on February 5. At this writing, the Federal Election Commission’s website has not published any statement of organization for a Caligiuri campaign. The would-be candidate has not replied to requests for comment.

Caligiuri is well-known in Iowa Christian conservative circles, having served as state director for the United States National Prayer Council, the Iowa Prayer Caucus, and National Governors’ Prayer Team. She’s on the committee planning this year’s Iowa Prayer Breakfast in March.

Linn County Supervisor Stacey Walker spoke about institutional racism, injustice, and discrimination at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Cedar Rapids on Monday, January 15. You can watch his keynote address for the MLK Day Celebration here. -promoted by desmoinesdem

In 1963 President Kennedy was asked by a journalist if he felt that his Administration was pushing integration too fast or not fast enough, citing a recent Gallup poll that showed fifty percent of the country felt he was moving too quickly on issues of race. President Kennedy responded, “This is not a matter on which you can take the temperature every few weeks, depending on what the newspaper headlines might be. You judged 1863 after a good many years – its full effect. The same poll showed forty percent or so thought it was more or less right. I thought that was rather impressive, because it is a change and change always disturbs, and therefore I was surprised there wasn’t greater opposition.”

Great is the person who can understand how the present fits into the larger picture of history. The battles we fight today may be obscured and distorted by the detractors, but we fight for the future, knowing full well that one day, history will affirm the moral certainty of our cause.

Prominent Iowa Republican Jamie Johnson resigned yesterday as leader of the Department of Homeland Security’s Center for Faith-Based & Neighborhood Partnerships, after CNN exposed a pattern of racist statements and “inflammatory remarks about Islam” between 2008 and 2016.

Johnson told CNN his past comments “do not represent my views personally or professionally”; “Having witnessed leaders from the entire faith spectrum work to empower their communities I now see things much differently.”

Whatever Johnson believes today, his generalizations about lazy, promiscuous, drug-using African Americans and Muslims who “want to cut our heads off” didn’t attract any special notice, let alone condemnation, in Iowa GOP circles. Republican activists elected the reverend to serve multiple terms on the party’s State Central Committee. Presidential candidates also sought Johnson’s support. He worked for Rick Santorum before the 2012 caucuses and for Rick Perry and Donald Trump at various times during the 2016 election cycle.

As a Jew, I want to express my utmost contempt for how Johnson praised American Jewish culture as a rhetorical device while denigrating other minority groups.

Thanks to Glenn Hurst for sharing this inspiring story of local activism. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Not long after Charlottesville, the Nazi menace attempted to slither into peaceful rural Iowa; Oakland, Iowa to be precise. As I laid fingers to keyboard, another ugly head attempted to sprout in northwest Iowa’s heavily Republican Sioux County. We took the same tactics spelled out here and successfully reproduced the protest in this Republican stronghold.

I had just emceed the vigil for Charlottesville held in Omaha a few weeks prior to the Oakland event. I was also providing the media coordination for the upcoming DACA event (scheduled for the following week) when murmurs about an anti-Islamic group snaking into Pottawattamie County started to get louder. Rallying against hate was becoming all too common.

Thanks to Iowa Safe Schools for working to protect all students from bullying, harassment, and discrimination. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Tomorrow, President Donald Trump is reportedly poised to sign an executive order establishing a sweeping religious exemption that would allow discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) people including youth. This license to discriminate against LGBTQ people, women, Muslims, people of color, and other marginalized groups is repulsive, regressive, and remedial.

This executive order does not increase freedom of religion which is already protected by our Constitution. It undermines crucial safeguards against discrimination that creates opportunities for LGBTQ youth to survive and succeed. If consistent with past draft orders, Trump’s Executive Order could allow school counselors to deny LGBTQ youth life-saving services, school principals to forbid interracial couples at prom, and LGBTQ educators could lose their jobs simply because of who they love.

This is America. No one should ever fear being “outed” for who they are or who they love. Youth should not fear going to school and facing discrimination from those who should be helping them. This Executive Order goes against the basic values of American society which is equal protection under the law.

Kent R. Kroeger is a writer and statistical consultant who has measured and analyzed public opinion for public and private sector clients for more than 30 years. -promoted by desmoinesdem

The American Heartland is not as conservative as some Republicans want you to believe, nor is it as liberal as some Democrats would prefer.

Like the nation writ large, the American Heartland is dominated by centrists who make up nearly half of the vote-eligible population.

That conclusion is based on my analysis of the recently released 2016-17 American National Election Study (ANES), which is a nationally-representative election study fielded every two years by Stanford University and The University of Michigan and is available here.

Across a wide-array of issues, most Heartland vote-eligible adults do not consistently agree with liberals or conservatives. They are, as their group’s label suggests, smack dab in the middle of the electorate.

However, on the issues most important to national voters in 2016 — the economy, jobs, national security, and immigration — there is a conservative skew in the opinions of the Heartland. The Iowa Democratic Party, as well as the national party, must recognize this reality as they try to translate the energy of the “resistance” into favorable and durable election outcomes in 2018.

Taylor Soule is a blogger, editor and nonprofit communicator. You can follow her on Twitter @TaylorOSoule. -promoted by desmoinesdem

After reading The Washington Post’s profile of Mike Pence’s wife, Karen, I struggled to focus my reaction to his refusal to eat alone with women outside his marriage. Sure, it astounded me that a man could be successful — Vice President of the United States — despite excluding women in such a profound, sweeping way. But at its core, I found myself remembering a dizzying swirl of moments and microaggressions, each rooted in the notion that women are inherently distractions — not people, let alone professionals.

Johnson County Supervisor Kurt Friese’s latest reflection resonated with me, since all four of my grandparents were born outside the U.S. -promoted by desmoinesdem

My grandmother Marie was an immigrant. She arrived at Ellis Island with her mother Dorthea and siblings on August 21st, 1906, aboard the SS Bremen. Then, as now, many Americans decried the influx of foreigners on our shores even while they celebrated the liberties embodied by the Statue of Liberty, who lifted her lamp beside the Golden Door for my grandmother and countless others, and who herself was a gift from a foreign land.

An Iowa State University graduate student shares impressions from a January 31 lecture by Ta-Nehisi Coates, “A Deeper Black: Race in America.” -promoted by desmoinesdem

I would like to start this article by admitting that I have not read all the works of Ta-Nehisi Coates. I have read several of his articles in The Atlantic, for which he is a national correspondent. Most recently, his article from The Atlantic, “My President was Black,” is an amazing read that will make you angry at what racism has done to politics in America but in the end leave you with even more love and appreciation in your heart for President Obama. Coates has also authored two books, The Beautiful Struggle (2008), and Between the World and Me (2015), which debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list. He also happens to be the author of the new Black Panther series from Marvel!

Despite my somewhat limited exposure to his works, I have known Coates as an avid advocate in the fight against racism as well as for his instrumental voice in sharing his experiences and thoughts as a Black American, and am thus a fan. Coates speaks his mind when it comes to politics in a fierce and refreshing way, and his visit to Iowa State University as a guest lecturer following a tumultuous first week of political chaos was invigorating.

Gary Kroeger looks at the proposed “First Amendment Defense Act,” which “may very well be the most frightening oxymoron of all time.” -promoted by desmoinesdem

What does it mean to be free in America? I believe it means that in the United States of America, no citizen will be denied services, opportunities, benefits, goods, transactions, acquisitions, access or mobility on the basis of their race, creed (religion), color, or gender. In fact, if there were distinctions to determine the extent of such rights, based on any physical or spiritual difference, then “American Freedom” would become meaningless.

This is not a state to state issue, either. There cannot be one definition for the qualifications of civil rights in one state that differs from another. American citizens can pass freely with a full complement of rights and expect the full protection of federal law. How could that be argued?

Yet it is. It is in legislation that is being re-introduced by Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee. And with a supportive Republican Congress and the blessings of President Trump, the First Amendment Defense Act could pass.

Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah to Bleeding Heartland readers who are celebrating today, and Happy Kwanzaa to those who will be celebrating tomorrow.

Did you know that Christmas “was not among the earliest festivals of the Church”? If you enjoy reading about historical origins of religious traditions, I recommend this post on the New Advent website, along with “How December 25 Became Christmas” by Andrew McGowan, dean and president of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University. Contrary to popular belief that Christians chose a birthday for Jesus in order to appropriate pagan celebrations around the winter solstice, McGown argues that “the key to dating Jesus’ birth may lie in the dating of Jesus’ death at Passover.”

I also enjoyed Kenneth Bailey’s analysis of the manger and the inn. More Christmas-related links are here.

The eight-day festival of Chanukah began last night, unusually late because an extra month was added to the lunar calendar during this Jewish version of a leap year. For those celebrating Chanukah with children, my best advice is to buy extra boxes of candles. Kids love to help load the menorahs, and they will break some candles.

I recommend Rabbi Brant Rosen’s reflections on a “tragic irony”: “the festival of Hanukkah, a Jewish holiday that commemorates an ancient uprising against an oppressive Assyrian ruler, is being observed as we hear the unbearably tragic reports coming from an uprising in modern-day Syria.” Follow Rosen’s links if you are interested in the ongoing debate among modern Jews about the Maccabees. Were the heroes of the Chanukah story religious fanatics who acted like the Taliban have done in Afghanistan during our lifetimes, carrying out a “civil war” against fellow Jews? Or were the Maccabees the freedom fighters celebrated by early Zionists? David Frum makes the case that the “miracle of the oil” lasting for eight days “is not the reason for the holiday. It’s a revision compiled six centuries after the fact, at a time when the true reasons for the holiday had become too embarrassing to remember.”

Rabbi Robin Podolsky is for celebrating the miracle and not viewing the Maccabees as the modern-day Taliban. But even she acknowledges,

Sadly but not shockingly, the Hasmonean dynasty launched by the Maccabees turned out to be as corrupt and decadent as everything it sought to replace. They even turned aggressively on their neighbors, seeking to convert others to Judaism by force, much as the Seleucids had attempted to convert the Jews. Contemporary Zionists who paint the Maccabees as entirely positive role models might want to remember this, especially in the context of current events. How is the “stubbornness” of Palestinians who insist on a sovereign state so different from that of our ancestors? How to make sure we don’t switch roles in the drama?

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Tom Witosky retired from the Des Moines Register in 2012 after 33 years of award-winning reporting on politics, sports and business. He is the co-author of Equal Before the Law: How Iowa Led Americans to Marriage Equality published by University of Iowa Press. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Jacob McNatt wept Sunday morning.

“I don’t understand for the life of me why someone would go to a place where people are getting together to have a good time and be happy and enjoy life would bring terror with them,” the bartender said as made a gin and tonic at the Blazing Saddle booth early Sunday afternoon at Capitol City Pride. “I don’t understand. It is just contrary to what I believe about humanity. It’s just awful.”

McNatt was just one of thousands at the annual gay pride event in Des Moines’ East Village who grieved while trying desperately to make sense of the murder of 49 men and women and 50 wounded at a gay bar in Orlando by a lone gunman killed by police in a gun fight.

Sunday’s steaming weather appeared to keep attendance down for the eight-block parade that has become a staple event for the Des Moines gay pride weekend, but one couldn’t help but think that events in Orlando made trying to celebrate pride too difficult for many of them.

As politicians pointed fingers at each other over whether the issue of the Orlando massacre was about religiously motivated terrorism or the refusal of this country to control the sale of assault weapons, those who still live with discrimination daily wondered out loud why no one was talking about them.

In four months of work this year, Iowa lawmakers made no progress on improving water quality or expanding conservation programs, funded K-12 schools and higher education below levels needed to keep up with inflation, failed to increase the minimum wage or address wage theft, let most criminal justice reform proposals die in committee, didn’t approve adequate oversight for the newly-privatized Medicaid program, opted against making medical cannabis more available to sick and suffering Iowans, and left unaddressed several other issues that affect thousands of constituents.

But let the record reflect that bipartisan majorities in the Iowa House and Senate acted decisively to solve a non-existent problem. At a bill-signing ceremony yesterday, Governor Terry Branstad and supporters celebrated preventing something that probably never would have happened.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Happy Easter to all who are celebrating. Usually this Christian holiday falls during the Jewish festival of Passover, which is still weeks away. Kimberly Donnelly explains,

Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. Passover, on the other hand, begins on the first full moon of Nisan, the first month of the Jewish lunar-based calendar.

The Jewish lunar calendar occasionally adds a leap month rather than the leap day we add to our solar calendar every fourth year. Passover is late in 2016 because a second month of Adar was added before the month of Nisan (often written Nissan).

In past years I’ve posted Easter and Passover related links here and here. A false claim about a Cedar Rapids Gazette front page headline on Easter Sunday figured prominently in University of Iowa Professor Stephen Bloom‘s 2011 hatchet job on our state, which provoked strong reactions from many Iowans.

Bernie Sanders swept yesterday’s caucuses in Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii by wide margins. He also won the Utah and Idaho caucuses on March 22, while Hillary Clinton won the Arizona primary. The big story out of Arizona was disgraceful voter suppression, as officials reduced the number of polling places in the state’s largest county from 200 in 2012 to only 60 this year. That’s just 60 polling places for a county with a population much larger than Iowa’s. As Ari Berman explained, the long lines to vote in Arizona were a direct consequence of the U.S. Supreme Court majority “gutting” the Voting Rights Act in 2013.

Republicans didn’t hold any nominating contests this weekend. The GOP caucuses in Alaska and Hawaii happened earlier this month, and Washington Republicans will vote in a May primary. On March 22, Ted Cruz won caucuses in Utah and Idaho by huge margins. John Kasich came in second in Utah, knocking Donald Trump to third place in a state for the first time this year. However, Trump crushed the competition in the Arizona primary, grabbing all of that state’s delegates.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that John Deeth’s speculation on what went wrong in Arizona is worth a read. A few excerpts are after the jump.

While working on another piece about Iowa politics highlights from the year, I decided to start a new Bleeding Heartland tradition. Writing is a labor of love for me, as for many bloggers, but let’s face it: not all posts are equally lovable.

The most important political events can be frustrating or maddening to write up, especially when there is so much ground to cover.

Any blogger will confirm that posts attracting the most readers are not necessarily the author’s favorites. The highest-traffic Bleeding Heartland post of 2015–in fact, the highest-traffic post in this blog’s history–was just another detailed account of a message-testing opinion poll, like many that came before. Word to the wise: if you want a link from the Drudge Report, it helps to type up a bunch of negative statements about Hillary Clinton.

Sometimes, committing to a topic leads to a long, hard slog. I spent more time on this critique of political coverage at the Des Moines Register than on any other piece of writing I’ve done in the last decade. But honestly, the task was more depressing than enjoyable.

Other pieces were pure pleasure. Follow me after the jump for my top fifteen from 2015.

Merry Christmas to all in the Bleeding Heartland community who are celebrating today. After unseasonably warm weather for most of December, snow arrived in time to produce a white Christmas for many Iowans. We didn’t get enough accumulation for sledding in central Iowa, but the trees look lovely. This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

The Des Moines Register ran this version of the Christmas story from the New King James Bible on the front page of today’s Iowa Life section. The date that Jesus was born remains unknown; Andrew McGowan offers one historical perspective on how December 25 came to be celebrated as Christmas. Also unknown are the number of wise men (not identified as kings in scripture) who reportedly came to look for the baby just born. The nature of the star of Bethlehem has been a hot topic of debate among religious historians. Apparently it was not Venus, Halley’s comet, a supernova, a meteor, or Uranus. Kenneth Bailey’s discussion of the manger and the inn is worth a read. In his view, the birthplace of Jesus was likely a private home, which may have been in a cave.

After the jump I’ve enclosed the video of Mike Huckabee’s famous “floating cross” Christmas-themed television commercial, which aired soon after he became the Republican front-runner for the 2008 Iowa caucuses. When Huckabee launched his second presidential campaign, I didn’t see him winning the Iowa caucuses again, but I expected him to retain a solid chunk of social conservative supporters, having retained high name recognition as a Fox News network show for years. I never thought we’d see Huckabee languishing below 3 percent in the Iowa polling average, below 2 percent in the South Carolina polling average, off the stage for prime-time debates, and reducing staff salaries for lack of money.

My family doesn’t celebrate Christian holidays, but we did enjoy noodle kugel last night while listening to the Klezmonauts’ “Oy to the World,” the only Christmas music we own and to my knowledge, the only collection of Christmas songs done in the klezmer style. If you love “Jewish jazz” and holiday music, I also recommend the Klezmatics album “Woody Guthrie’s Happy Joyous Hanukkah.” It’s true, the legendary American folk singer wrote lots of Chanukah-themed lyrics. Members of the Klezmatics set Guthrie’s words to new music.

Final note: The peace wreath image at the top of this post originally appeared at the Paint Me Plaid website. The peace symbol first became popular in this country during protests against the Vietnam War, but like so many of our political traditions, it has roots in the United Kingdom–in this case, from the 1950s British anti-nuclear movement.

Republican Party of Iowa Chair Jeff Kaufmann blew a gasket in March when soon-to-be presidential candidate Scott Walker hired a consultant who had said some disparaging things about Iowa:

“It’s obvious she doesn’t have a clue what Iowa’s all about,” Mr. Kaufmann said. “I find her to be shallow and ignorant,” he added, “and I’ll tell you, if I was Governor Walker, I’d send her her walking papers.”

A few months later, Kaufmann brought down the hammer on some volunteers who displayed the Confederate flag on behalf of a county GOP committee:

“I am just absolutely, utterly disgusted on multiple levels,” Kaufmann said in a telephone interview. “Shame on them and I don’t want them in my party.”

The Iowa GOP leader’s reaction to Donald Trump’s latest disgraceful, illegal idea was weak by comparison.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Arguments over the appropriate U.S. response to refugees from Syria were a hot topic this week in personal conversations as well as in the news media. I saw some longtime friendships strained over heated Facebook threads about the question. Governor Terry Branstad’s order “to halt any work on Syrian refugee resettlements immediately in order to ensure the security and safety of Iowans” provoked commentaries in several major newspapers and an unusually strong statement from Iowa’s four Catholic bishops.

The U.S. House vote to in effect stop the flow of refugees from Syria and Iraq generated passionate comments from supporters and opponents of the measure. Dozens of Iowans expressed their disappointment on the thread under Representative Dave Loebsack’s official statement explaining his vote. In an apparent response to negative feedback from progressives, Loebsack’s Congressional campaign sent an e-mail to supporters the following day, trying to distinguish his position on refugees from the Middle East from that of many Republicans, and assuring that “we will not turn our backs on those in need.” (Scroll to the end of this post to read that message.)

Calls by some politicians to admit only certifiably Christian refugees from the Middle East triggered strong emotions in many American Jews this week. I saw it on my social media feeds, where many people reminded their non-Jewish friends and acquaintances that the U.S. turned away a ship carrying hundreds of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum issued a rare statement on a political matter (enclosed below), urging “public figures and citizens to avoid condemning today’s refugees [from Syria] as a group.”

I’ve seen many people object to that analogy, saying reluctance to admit Syrian refugees is grounded in legitimate fears for public safety, unlike the prejudice that influenced U.S. immigration policy during the 1930s. But as historian Peter Shulman explained in this commentary for Fortune magazine,

Opposition to Jewish refugees was not simply timeless bigotry. With today’s talk of “Judeo-Christian” values, it is easy to forget the genuine alienness and threat to national security these refugees represented. […]

Behind these [1939 poll] numbers [showing widespread hostility toward Jews] lay a toxic fear of Jewish subversion. For decades, Jews had been linked to various strains of un-American threats: socialism, communism, and anarchism, of course, but also (paradoxically) a kind of hyper-capitalism. Many believed that the real threat to the United States lay not from abroad, but within.

One author of a recent letter to the Des Moines Register called for vetting Syrian refugees at the U.S. facility for holding suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay: “My Irish ancestors went through a similar process at Ellis Island. The vetting procedure was very different for them. They were checked to be sure they weren’t carrying diseases into America. We need to be sure that the refugees coming into our country don’t come with a mind disease goal of killing us, instead of seeking a new life for themselves, like my Irish ancestors did.” Here’s some news for letter-writer Janet Boggs: when the first large waves of Irish ancestors entered this country during the 1840s and 1850s, many native-born Americans considered them and other Catholic immigrants an existential threat to this country, not harmless migrants seeking a better life. Read up on the Know-Nothing Party.

Today’s Sunday Des Moines Register includes a letter to the editor from Republican State Representative Steve Holt, who thanked Branstad for making “the safety of Iowans” his priority. Holt warned, “If we expect Western civilization to survive, we must abandon political correctness and educate ourselves on the realities of Islam, and the instrument of its implementation, Sharia law.” Holt represents half of GOP State Senator Jason Schultz’s constituents in western Iowa; Schultz has been beating the “Sharia law” drum for months while agitating against allowing any more refugees from the Middle East to settle in Iowa. UPDATE: I should have noted that today’s Register also ran a letter to the editor from Democratic State Representative Marti Anderson, who made the case for welcoming refugees. I’ve added it after the jump.

Speaking of security risks, yesterday Ryan Foley reported for the Associated Press on questions surrounding the threat assessment teams many universities formed after the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech. I didn’t know that the University of Iowa sent “a detective with the campus threat assessment team” to a fake news conference communications Professor Kembrew McLeod organized in August to poke fun at efficiency measures outside consultants recommended for Iowa’s public universities. I had forgotten about the lawsuit stemming from false accusations that a whistleblower employee in the Iowa State College of Engineering’s marketing department might be a “potential terrorist or mass murderer.” Officials spreading such rumors about the employee included the former boss whose shady conduct he had exposed. Excerpts from Foley’s article are below, but click through to read the whole piece.

The first visit by Pope Francis to the United States is generating massive interest, including among members of the U.S. House and Senate. You can read the full transcript of the pontiff’s Congressional address here.

In a YouTube video and multiple media interviews today, Representative Steve King (R, IA-04) praised the “inclusive” speech and said he had never seen his colleagues as attentive as they were while listening to the Pope. After the jump I’ve posted what Pope Francis said about immigration and the current global refugee crisis, as well as excerpts from King’s reaction. Immigration policy has long been a hot-button issue for the Iowa Republican. His views on birthright citizenship and DREAMers (who were brought to this country illegally as children) are the opposite of welcoming and inclusive.

Most of the Iowans in Congress have not yet commented on listening to the Pope today, but I will add further reaction to this post as needed. King is the only Catholic remaining in Iowa’s delegation, following Senator Tom Harkin’s retirement last year. Raised a Methodist, King converted to Catholicism seventeen years after marrying his wife Marilyn.

Since the Supreme Court of the United States issued its ruling in the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, affirming the right of same-gender couples throughout the country to marry, some politicians and pundits have claimed religious liberty is now threatened in our nation.

“This decision will be a serious blow to religious liberty,” said Mike Huckabee. Bobby Jindal said the decision was the start of an “all-out assault on religious freedom.” Ted Cruz said, “Religious liberty has never been so threatened as it is today.”

Of course, that’s not true. The decision has no adverse impact on any religious institutions or faith leaders. In fact, the decision has quite the opposite impact. It’s a victory for religious liberty.  

I was planning to compile presidential candidate reactions to this week’s two big U.S. Supreme Court decisions for the weekend thread, but this disturbing feature for the Kansas City Star derailed my plans. Jason Hancock and Steve Kraske report on a pervasive hostile work environment for women at the Missouri Capitol. I’ve posted a few excerpts below, but you need to click through and read the whole piece, which explores the toxic culture fueling the harassment and lack of accountability.

Too many women working at the Iowa statehouse have had similar experiences. I’ve heard some appalling stories in private communications, and no, it’s not a partisan problem. My impression is that over the last 15 to 20 years, the work environment at the Capitol in Des Moines has improved, and sexual harassment is no longer as prevalent for Iowa legislative staffers as it is in Jefferson City, Missouri. That said, if even half of what Kirsten Anderson alleged in court filings is true, the culture at the Iowa statehouse is far from where it needs to be.

For a politically-engaged young person starting a career, there can hardly be a more exciting job than working in a state legislature. I feel physically ill thinking of how many women have had powerful men ruin these potentially enriching experiences. Harassment can cause severe emotional trauma. One former Missouri legislative staffer told the Kansas City Star, “The best thing that ever happened to me was getting another job and leaving that building.” Hardly any of the perpetrators faced real consequences for their unethical (and in some cases illegal) conduct toward female interns or legislative employees.

Speaking of hostile environments, many social conservatives appear to be hunkering down in a siege mentality following Friday’s Supreme Court decision on marriage equality. I am continually baffled to see how opinion leaders on the Christian right are so eager to view themselves as persecuted minorities. No church will be forced to officiate or recognize a same-sex marriage, any more than the Catholic Church has been forced to marry people who had civil divorces over the last five decades.

Some of the over-the-top reactions to the marriage ruling are laughable. But when you think about it, how unhealthy to convince yourself and your followers that religious Americans are now “vulnerable.” Christian martyrdom is still a tragic reality in some parts of the world, but fomenting paranoid ideas about the fate of American conservatives doesn’t benefit anyone. Check that: I can see how some people and corporations could profit from spreading fear that Christians are about to be persecuted on a mass scale and “Must Now Learn To Live as Exiles in Our Own Country.”

Having spent most of my life in metro areas where my fellow Jews made up less than 1 percent of the population, I’ve wondered what it would have been like to live in a larger Jewish community as a child. But one huge plus about growing up in Iowa was learning at an early age that the whole world wasn’t ever going to validate my religious perspective, nor did I need the mass culture to approve and promote my beliefs. I encourage disappointed social conservatives to learn that life lesson sooner rather than later.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Marriage equality has been all over the news, with the sixth anniversary of legal same-sex marriage in Iowa arriving the same week the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments related to state bans on marriage for LGBT couples. The Des Moines Register published charts showing Iowa poll findings on same-sex marriage going back to 1996. In that year, the Iowa House and Senate approved the Defense of Marriage Act, which the state Supreme Court struck down in the 2009 Varnum v Brien decision. Then State Representative Ed Fallon was the only Iowa lawmaker to vote against the DOMA; click here to read his passionate floor speech against the bill. I’ve posted excerpts after the jump.

The Washington Post compiled five charts showing “gay marriage’s road to popularity.” The most fascinating data point to me was that 34 percent of Republican respondents in an April 2015 nationwide Washington Post/ABC News poll now support marriage equality. Another chart shows that “Same-sex marriage attitudes also continue to be divided along religious lines.” That data set did not include Jews, however, who overwhelmingly support marriage equality.

Today’s Sunday Des Moines Register includes two good features by Mike Kilen following up on the six couples who were plaintiffs in the Varnum case. In a separate piece, Bob Vander Plaats and State Senator Dennis Guth told Kilen why they still believe it was a mistake to allow same-sex couples to marry.

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger believes the decline in Republican voter registrations in his state is linked to “divisive battle over Proposition 8,” a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. California voters approved Prop 8 by ballot initiative in 2008, but it ceased to be in effect in June 2013, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Prop 8 supporters did not have standing to appeal a lower-court ruling striking down the marriage ban.

Final note: Dowling Catholic High School in West Des Moines approved a request by a group of students to form a non-religious LGBT support club. The school recently made national news by withdrawing a contract offer made to an openly gay teacher. The new gay-straight alliance, “One Human Family,” will help provide “support, respect, and guidance” for students who either identify as LGBT or have questions about their sexual orientation.  

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

I just caught up on some recent remarks by Iowa’s Republican National Committeewoman Tamara Scott. In addition to representing Iowa on the RNC, Scott lobbies the state legislature on behalf of Bob Vander Plaats’ FAMiLY Leader organization and leads the Iowa chapter of Concerned Women for America, an influential group on the religious right. She was speaking at the FAMiLY Leader’s southeast regional summit on April 9, an event four potential GOP presidential candidates attended. Scott used the Wiccan invocation that stirred controversy in the Iowa House to make a case for more public expressions of Christianity, including teaching the country’s dominant religion in public schools. (Scott has frequently advocated school prayer and alleged that various societal problems stem from removing Christian prayers from public schools during the 1970s.) Miranda Blue covered the FAMiLY Leader regional summit speech for Right Wing Watch; some excerpts are after the jump. For video of all speeches from the regional summit, click here.

I am continually struck by how clueless social conservatives are about the separation of church and state. Though Scott does not acknowledge this legal reality, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from promoting any specific religious viewpoint. Every time a prominent Republican demands more government expressions and endorsements of Christianity, they are driving away Jews and probably members of other minority religious groups too, not to mention the growing number of Americans who do not identify with any religion.

In a fantastic column for the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Lynda Waddington offers her own Christian perspective on Scott’s prayer for a storm to disrupt the Wiccan invocation. I’ve enclosed excerpts below, but you should click through to read the whole piece. All I can say is, that Cabot witch sure demonstrated some amazing powers.

Administrators at Dowling Catholic High School in West Des Moines are considering students’ request to form “a non-religious LGBT support club.” The school made national news recently for withdrawing a contract offered to a teacher after administrators learned he was openly gay. After at least 150 students walked out of class to protest the hiring decision, a junior at the school who is gay started a petition seeking to form a club where all students “can feel supported and loved.” Initially school officials said they would discuss the request, and at this writing, they have not announced a decision. Gay-straight alliances exist in scores of Iowa public high schools, but to my knowledge, the only Catholic school in the state with such a club is Regina High School in Iowa City.

After the jump I’ve posted excerpts from Liam Jameson’s petition at Change.org and the full text of an e-mail Dowling Catholic President Jerry Deegan sent to parents on April 16. Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread.

On a related note, although I could not be more strongly pro-choice, I believe students at Hampton-Dumont High School in Franklin County, Iowa should be allowed to form a “Students for Life” club, as long as staff don’t promote the club and students are not required to attend.

to make other people act like idiots.

I didn’t think anything could top some people’s freak-out over atheist ads on Des Moines buses, but the reaction to yesterday’s Wiccan invocation in the Iowa House is a contender.

As a religious institution, Dowling Catholic High School in West Des Moines is exempt from Iowa Code provisions that have prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation since 2007.

But as local Catholic leaders are learning this week, a legal exemption can’t immunize Dowling from political fallout over the decision to withdraw a teaching contract offered to an openly gay man.  

Happy Passover or Happy Easter to all who are celebrating this weekend. In past years Bleeding Heartland has posted links about those religious holidays. For today’s open thread, I’m reflecting on the Iowa Supreme Court’s Varnum v Brien ruling, announced on April 3, 2009.

Lambda Legal, which represented the Varnum plaintiffs, published a timeline of the case. The LGBT advocacy group filed the lawsuit in December 2005, banking on the Iowa Supreme Court’s “extraordinary history” of independence and “civil rights leadership.”

If Iowa lawmakers had approved a state constitutional amendment on marriage, the Varnum case might never have been filed (in anticipation of Iowans approving a ban on same-sex marriage, as voters had done in many other states). But during the 2004 legislative session, the marriage amendment failed by one vote in the upper chamber, thanks to the united Senate Democratic caucus, joined by GOP senators Maggie Tinsman, Don Redfern, Mary Lundby, and Doug Shull. All four Republican moderates had left the legislature by the time the Iowa Supreme Court ruled on Varnum. Redfern retired in 2004. Tinsman lost her 2006 primary to a social conservative challenger. Shull retired from the Senate in 2006 and unsuccessfully sought a seat in the state House that year. Lundby retired from the legislature in 2008 and passed away the following year.  

Reading through the early Democratic and Republican reaction to the Varnum decision should make all Iowa Democrats proud. Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal and former House Speaker Pat Murphy deserve credit for their leadership at a time when some Democrats would have run for cover on an issue perceived to be unpopular. Minority civil rights should never be conditional on majority approval.

As for the Republicans in the Bleeding Heartland community, you can be proud that your party’s state legislators seem less and less interested in fighting the losing battle to restrict marriage to heterosexual couples.

Three of the seven justices who concurred in Varnum v Brien (Chief Justice Marsha Ternus, Justice David Baker, and Justice Michael Streit) lost their jobs in Iowa’s 2010 retention elections. Justice David Wiggins survived a campaign against his retention in 2012. The remaining three justices who concurred in the decision are up for retention in 2016: Chief Justice Mark Cady (author of the ruling), Justice Daryl Hecht, and Justice Brent Appel. It’s not yet clear whether Bob Vander Plaats and his fellow-travellers will make a serious effort to remove them, or whether they will give up in the face of Iowans’ growing acceptance of marriage equality.

The LGBT advocacy group One Iowa holds an annual gala around the anniversary of the Varnum ruling. Last night the group honored Iowa Senate President Pam Jochum and Des Moines Register columnist Rekha Basu, among others. I enclose below a statement from the group marking six years since gay and lesbian couples won the freedom to marry in Iowa.

Like the zombie lie that cannot be killed, social conservatives defending business owners who would decline services to gay couples continue to rely on the same analogy about the government hypothetically forcing a Jewish deli owner to handle and serve non-kosher food.

Bleeding Heartland has discussed the basic logical flaw here, but let’s walk it through one more time.  

Representative Steve King is making national news again, but in a new twist, for offensive comments about Jews rather than Latinos.

Speaking to Boston Herald radio on Friday, King said, “I don’t understand how Jews in America can be Democrats first and Jewish second and support Israel along the line of just following their president.” Over the weekend, apparently unaware that he had just validated a classic anti-Semitic trope about divided Jewish loyalties, King claimed that he was defending Israelis.

As my grandmother might have said, what King doesn’t know about Jews could fill a book. But after reflecting on the matter, I realized that King’s worldview is just as inexplicable to a typical American Jewish Democrat as mine is to him.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? I’m not big on “Hallmark holidays,” but if Valentine’s Day (or “co-opting Valentine’s Day”) is your thing, I hope you enjoyed February 14. This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

I wanted to catch up on news from a couple of weeks ago, which may continue to reverberate during the Republican Iowa caucus campaign. The owners of Görtz Haus agreed to settle with a gay couple who had wanted to get married at their venue in Grimes. Betty and Richard Odgaard are Mennonites who don’t believe in same-sex marriage. Since the law doesn’t allow them to discriminate against LGBT couples, they have decided not to hold any weddings at their place of business. They also dropped their own doomed-to-fail lawsuit against the Iowa Civil Rights Commission. Clips with background on the episode and reaction to its resolution are after the jump.

Social conservatives are outraged over what they see as an assault on religious freedom. Both talk radio host Steve Deace and Bob Vander Plaats’ organization The FAMiLY Leader have indicated that the Görtz Haus controversy will be a salient issue in the coming presidential campaign.

What these folks can’t acknowledge is that no one is forcing the Odgaards or anyone else to approve of or “celebrate” gay weddings. Many of us have ethical or religious objections to some marriages; for instance, if the couple began dating while married to other people, or if one person appears to be marrying solely for money, or if there is a large age gap between the spouses. Plenty of Jews and Christians would disapprove of my own interfaith marriage. No one is demanding that the whole world applaud every marriage, only that the religious beliefs of some don’t interfere with the civil rights of others.

Additionally, it’s important to note that no house of worship in Iowa has ever been forced to hold same-sex weddings. If the Odgaards ran a church, they would be fully within their rights to refuse to serve LGBT couples. Görtz Haus is a for-profit business, subject to the same civil rights statutes as other public venues.  

Iowa politics watchers are still talking about the latest statewide poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics. Bleeding Heartland discussed the topline Iowa caucus numbers here. Harry Enten took issue with various “Scott Walker leads” headlines, writing at FiveThirtyEight that the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll indicates “chaos” rather than the Wisconsin governor leading the Republican field. Pat Rynard’s take on the implications for Democratic and Republican presidential contenders is at Iowa Starting Line.

Anyone who is vaguely familiar with Iowa Republican discourse shouldn’t be surprised that Jeb Bush’s stands on immigration reform and “Common Core” education standards are a “deal-killer” for many conservatives polled by Selzer. As for why New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has the highest negatives (with 54 percent of GOP respondents viewing him unfavorably), there are many potential explanations. It’s only been a year since the scandal involving politically-motivated bridge lane closures made national news. Before that, he angered social conservatives by signing a bill that bans “gay conversion therapy” and by not fighting a court ruling that overturned New Jersey’s ban on same-sex marriage. Who knows, maybe some Iowa Republicans are still mad that Christie praised President Barack Obama’s handling of Hurricane Sandy right before the 2012 presidential election.

The Des Moines Register has rolled out other findings from the latest Iowa poll this week. Sad to say, I’m surprised that only 39 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers agreed with the statement “Islam is an inherently violent religion, which leads its followers to violent acts.” I would have expected more to agree with that statement and fewer than 53 percent of GOP respondents to lean toward “Islam is an inherently peaceful religion, but there are some who twist its teachings to justify violence.” Among likely Democratic caucus-goers in the sample, only 13 percent said Islam is inherently violent, while 81 percent said the faith is inherently peaceful.

Not surprisingly, Selzer’s poll found a big partisan divide in whether Iowans see U.S. Senator Joni Ernst as a potential president. I wish the question wording had been more clear. To me, “Do you think Joni Ernst does or does not have what it takes to become president one day?” is ambiguous. Were they trying to get at whether respondents think Ernst could do the job, or whether she could be elected? I don’t think Ernst has “what it takes” to be a good legislator, but obviously she had “what it takes” to win the Senate election. The results would be easier to interpret if respondents had been asked something like, “Would you ever consider voting for Joni Ernst for president someday?” or “Regardless of whether you might personally support her, do you think Joni Ernst could be elected president someday?”

No Des Moines Register story by Jennifer Jacobs about Ernst would be complete without some pro-Ernst slant, and in this case I had to laugh reading the pulled quotes from poll respondents. The ones who had good things to say about Ernst sounded reasonable and well spoken, whereas the one Democrat Jacobs quoted criticizing Ernst was made to look petty: “She kind of represents everything that makes me want to throw up in the morning – and I’m not even pregnant.”

Bleeding Heartland doesn’t usually comment on polls from other states, but Quinnipiac’s latest findings from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida will interest any political junkie. In head to head match-ups, Hillary Clinton leads by double digits against every Republican tested in Pennsylvania. She “dominates” all of them in Ohio, except for Governor John Kasich, who trails her by a statistically insignificant 1 percent. She also has a comfortable lead in Florida against all of the Republicans except former Governor Jeb Bush, who trails by 1 percent. Yes, it’s “too early” for a 2016 general election poll; in 1999 many polls found George W. Bush way ahead of Vice President Al Gore. Yes, name recognition may be contributing to Clinton’s leads. Nevertheless, if the Q-poll is anywhere in the ballpark, the Republican nominee will go into the next presidential election as the underdog. Thanks to the “Big Blue Wall,” Clinton could get to 270 electoral votes with the states John Kerry won in 2004 plus Florida, or the states Kerry won plus Ohio and one or two other smaller states (such as Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, or Iowa).

Republicans may take heart in the fact that some of their likely presidential contenders (such as Walker) were not included in Quinnipiac’s swing-state polls.

The recent measles outbreak has sparked more media discussion of the trend away from routine vaccination. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie tried to walk a fine line when asked about the issue yesterday, saying parents should have “some measure of choice” over immunizing their kids. I enclose his comments and his staff’s later attempts to clarify below.

Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Rand Paul, who is also a medical doctor, told a popular right-wing radio host yesterday, “I’m not anti-vaccine at all but…most of them ought to be voluntary. […] I think there are times in which there can be some rules but for the most part it ought to be voluntary.” He took a shot at former Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has said it was a mistake for his administration to try to require the human papillomavirus vaccine for pre-teen girls in Texas.

As these and other Republican presidential candidates tour Iowa this year, I guarantee that they will face many more questions about the vaccine issue. In my non-blogging life, I have encountered hundreds of Iowa parents who choose not to vaccinate their children. They are a diverse group and can’t be stereotyped as “crunchy hippie” lefties or religious conservatives. Some don’t trust the government to regulate toxins in products pushed by pharmaceutical companies. Others may not believe vaccines cause autism but fear different adverse reactions. Or, they think “natural immunity” acquired through getting a disease is stronger. Many conservative evangelicals and Catholics shun vaccines because of concerns about the use of fetal tissue in their manufacture (see also here). Although the most influential homeschooling group, the Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators, does not take a position for or against immunizations, my impression is that anti-vaccine views are more prevalent among homeschoolers than among parents who send their children to public or parochial schools. Homeschoolers were a critical base of support for Mike Huckabee’s 2008 Iowa caucus campaign and were courted by multiple presidential candidates before the 2012 caucuses.

Some libertarian-leaning conservatives may not worry about the safety or ethics of vaccines, and may even have their own children immunized, but on principle don’t think the government should tell parents anything about how to raise kids. That group looks like a natural Rand Paul constituency, but they may be open to other candidates who cater to their views.

Regardless of how far the measles outbreak spreads, this issue will remain a minefield for GOP candidates.

Side note: In central Iowa, more and more pediatric practices are rejecting families whose parents want to deviate from the accepted vaccine schedule. In my opinion, that is a huge mistake. There is no one perfect immunization schedule. Medical associations in different countries recommend that babies and toddlers get shots for various diseases at different times. Based on my conversations, many of these parents would agree to most or all of the vaccines eventually; they just feel uncomfortable with so many shots clustered close together. Instead of accommodating those concerns with a delayed schedule, pediatricians are driving families away. So worried parents either stop taking their kids to regular wellness checks, or seek medical care only from chiropractors or alternative health providers.

UPDATE: Added below further comments from Rand Paul on why vaccines should be voluntary.

Likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton weighed in on Twitter: “The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let’s protect all our kids. #GrandmothersKnowBest”

A Bleeding Heartland reader reminded me about this report from last year, indicating that “In West Des Moines, 37 percent of home-schooled children are not fully vaccinated.”  

Merry Christmas to everyone in the Bleeding Heartland community who is celebrating the holiday, and peace on earth to all regardless of religious beliefs and customs. This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

In past years I have posted some links about the religious origins of Christmas celebrations as well as some traditional food for the holiday.

Children often look forward to the toys they will receive on Christmas. Unfortunately, not all of those toys are safe or appropriate. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood gives out “awards” annually for the worst toys of the year. This year’s nominees were atrocious. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group’s annual “Trouble in Toyland” report is an excellent resource for parents, and I recommend checking to see if any of your children’s gifts ended up on the danger list. I’ve posted the executive summary after the jump, along with excerpts from a good Des Moines Register article on keeping your kids safe during the holidays.

Speaking of safety, the long Christmas weekend tends to be a busy time for travel. If you are driving to see friends or family, one of the best presents you can give yourself, your loved ones, and everyone else on the road is not using your cell phone while driving. It doesn’t matter whether you are talking or texting, or whether you are holding the phone or using hands-free technology: “There is no safe way to use a cell phone while driving.” Legislative bans on texting while driving or using hand-held phones haven’t reduced crashes (including in Iowa), only partly because of noncompliance. Hands-free devices give drivers a “false sense of security,” and drivers aware of texting bans may attempt to hold their phones out of view, increasing the amount of time they take their eyes off the road.

UPDATE: I should have included a few links on good toys. Here’s a piece on toys that encourage creative, imaginative play, and here’s a classic on “The 5 Best Toys of All Time” (though I would replace “dirt” with a ball).

Sunday night, the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines marked its 100th anniversary at a dinner gathering downtown. The gala was unusual in several respects. For one thing, I don’t recall seeing such a large and bipartisan group of Iowa politicians at any non-political local event before. Attendees included Senator Chuck Grassley, Governor Terry Branstad, State Senator Jack Hatch, Lieutenant Governor nominee Monica Vernon, Representative Bruce Braley, State Senator Joni Ernst, Representative Dave Loebsack, IA-03 candidates David Young and Staci Appel, State Senator Matt McCoy, Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie, State Representatives Helen Miller, Marti Anderson, and Peter Cownie, and several suburban mayors or city council members. (Insert your own “a priest, a rabbi, and an Iowa politician walk into a bar” joke here.)

The keynote speech was even more striking. It’s standard practice to invite a Jewish celebrity to headline major Federation events. This year’s guest was award-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss. But other than a “Borscht belt”-inspired opening riff about learning to nod and say “Yes, dear” to his wife, Dreyfuss left obvious material aside. He didn’t dwell on humorous anecdotes from his Hollywood career, or talk about how being Jewish helped his craft. Instead, Dreyfuss reminisced about a cultural place and time that could hardly be more foreign to his Iowa audience, regardless of age or religious background.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 today in favor of Hobby Lobby’s right not to provide contraception coverage in its health insurance package for employees. The Obama administration had already exempted some religious organizations and non-profits from the contraception mandate in the 2010 health care reform law. Today’s ruling allows a closely-held (that is, not publicly traded) for-profit corporation to claim religious rights that override the rights of their employees, not to mention the need to comply with federal law.

You can read the full text of the Supreme Court’s decision and dissents here (pdf). Justice Samuel Alito wrote the “opinion of the court,” joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Anthony Kennedy. Strangely, Kennedy wrote a separate concurring opinion “in an attempt to show how narrow the Court’s decision was.” Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Stephen Breyer dissented. The majority ruling appears to apply only to contraception health care services, as opposed to other medical procedures to which some groups have religious objections (such as vaccinations or blood transfusions). Still, Ginsburg seems on track when she warns that the court “has ventured into a minefield” by “approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation.” Analyzing today’s decision, Lyle Denniston predicted more litigation will be needed to clarify the limits of the new religious exemption for closely-held companies.

For background on the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case (formerly Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius) and the implications of the ruling, check the Alliance for Justice and SCOTUSblog websites.

After the jump I’ve posted comments from various Iowa elected officials and candidates. So far Iowa Democrats have been quicker to respond to the Hobby Lobby ruling than Republicans. I will update this post as needed.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

A joyous Easter to those who celebrate today and a happy Passover to those who observe. Last year I posted lots of Easter and Passover-related links here. I’ll just add a couple more: 2014 is one of those years when Eastern Orthodox Christians and those of other denominations celebrate Easter on the same day. Most of the time those holidays fall on different weekends because the churches use different calendars.

Reform Judaism magazine published a fascinating interview with Biblical scholar Richard Elliott Friedman. He argues that the Exodus story is not fiction, but reflects a departure from Egypt by the Levite tribe, and that most of the Hebrews never lived in Egypt. I’ve posted excerpts after the jump, but I encourage you to click through and read the whole interview. Friedman is “a leading proponent of the Documentary Hypothesis, which maintains that the the biblical texts traditionally known as the Five Books of Moses are actually the synthesis of many different sources from different time periods.” Click that link to learn more about what he views as “the editorial team behind the Bible.”

Religious or secular, I think all Iowans appreciate spring’s arrival. This weekend’s weather is almost perfect. Just within the past few days, the first ruby-throated hummingbird sightings were reported on the edges of Iowa. We don’t typically see any in Windsor Heights until early May. The latest central Iowa butterfly forecast is here. Our bloodroot only just started blooming this week, nearly a month behind schedule. We can see leaves or buds on a few other spring wildflowers, so I’m just about ready to relaunch Iowa wildflower Wednesday.