Forum focuses on acceptance for gays, lesbians
[Ed. Note: This issue is not going away. The gay community outspends all other groups combined for advertising, demonstrations and legislation. They are determined to get what they want and it seems that if it takes riots and/or violence to keep the issue before the public, so be it. This forum in Council Bluffs is another example of why the media outlets feel forced to cover these events - and why it either makes the front page of the daily paper or the first three stories on local TV news. Cheryl M. Wetzel]
http://www.southwestiowanews.com/articles/2009/11/17/council_bluffs/doc4b02d0ef0fe8e330935735.txt
By TIM ROHWER, Staff Writer
timothy.rohwer@nonpareilonline.com
Several years ago, Mike Yowell had to take his partner, Hersh Rodasky, to the emergency room at a Council Bluffs hospital.
“You can’t see him,” Yowell was told by a staffer. “You’re not family.”
Such a prohibitive order won’t happen again. Yowell and Rodasky were married on April 30, just a few weeks after the Iowa Supreme Court gave them, and other same-sex couples, the right to do. But that’s in Iowa. In many places nationally, gays are still on the “outside” when it comes to equal rights, including marriage, Yowell said.
“This is the great civil rights battle of our time,” he told an estimated 40 people at public forum Monday evening on the need for equal rights for everyone.
“We’re just like everyone else,” Yowell said.
Just across the Missouri River in Nebraska, where same-sex marriages aren’t allowed under its Constitution, Yowell said gays still face hurdles, including financial burdens.
For example, he and Rodasky own rental properties in Omaha and Council Bluffs. If one were to die, the survivor would pay 18 percent inheritance tax on the Nebraska properties since Nebraska doesn’t recognize their marriage, Yowell said.
“Here, we pay nothing,” he said.
The purpose of the forum, hosted by One Iowa and the Council Bluffs Community Alliance, was to share stories like those, to provide an outlet for public conversation and for guidance on more public acceptance.
“Build friendships,” suggested the Rev. Tim Vann, rector at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Council Bluffs. “It’s hard to deny equality when you know people face to face.”
It took just one person, a high school friend who “outed” for Susannah Go to change her viewpoint. Today, she’s an alliance board member and faculty advisor for Gays, Lesbians and Straight Supporters (GLASS) at Iowa Western Community College.
“It changed my life,” Go said.
“Education, education,” Yowell added.
He and Rodasky, together for 28 years, adopted an 8-year-old girl many years ago.
“Nobody wanted her, no straight people wanted her,” Yowell said. “We gave her all the love and nurturing that any parents could.”
Today, their daughter, Alisha Hennessy, is a college graduate, married with two children.
“We are just as capable of being good parents as anybody else,” Yowell said.
The Supreme Court ruling made national headlines, but historically it may not have been surprising, according to attorney Nathan Watson. Iowa has taken the lead on many civil rights issues throughout history, he said.
Iowa was the first state where women could own property and where they could become lawyers, Watson said. It was also one of the first states to allow women to attend college on an equal basis with men, he added.
“For over 150 years, Iowa has been a precedence-setting (state) on a number of issues,” Watson said. “We are on the winning side of history.”
“We’re just people,” Rodasky said. “We pay our taxes, we pay our bills. We love our community. This is where we’re going to retire.”