Salon Interview w/ Bob Vander Plaats, the "fiercely anti-gay" author of "The Marriage Vow"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Presidential candidates are asked to sign pledges all the time, but the GOP primary has been roiled for the past few days by an uncommonly influential document -- the Marriage Vow: A Declaration of Dependence Upon Marriage and Family -- put out by an Iowa group, the Family Leader.

As we've noted, the Marriage Vow covers a lot more ground than mere marital relations (porn, sharia, and slavery, for example). Michele Bachmann promptly signed the document, then received uncomfortable questions about her views on slavery. Rick Santorum promised to sign it. With his lifetime of divorces and infidelities, Newt Gingrich is functionally ineligible. Libertarian Gary Johnson has blasted the pledge as "offensive." And Mitt Romney has been tellingly silent.

The Family Leader was formed after the 2010 elections as a coalition of Iowa social conservative advocacy groups, with Bob Vander Plaats as its executive director and public face. Vander Plaats had become the best known conservative culture warrior in Iowa that year after receiving a respectable 41 percent of the vote in the GOP gubernatorial primary; his campaign focused on reversing a 2009 decision by the state supreme court allowing same-sex marriage.

After losing in the primary, the fiercely anti-gay Vander Plaats led the successful campaign to oust three supreme court justices who had voted for the same-sex marriage decision. Now at the helm of the Family Leader, he has brought in presidential hopefuls for a speech series and is openly cultivating an image as Iowa kingmaker.



http://www.salon.com/news/2012_elections/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/07/12/marriage_pledge_vander_plaats

[givemebackmycountry]

1. He is a viscious looking handjob isn't he?

Oh, and he's a conservative culture warrior too?
Hey asshole, how would you like a shot at the title?

Go a couple of rounds with me in a closed room, and I'll knock those ferret faced teeth of yours down your throat.
I still mourn for my slain gay friend, and I have a lesson or two for you.
You deserve an ass kicking.

Conservative culture warrior?
Conserve THIS motherfucker.

[provis99]

2. the Gaydar rings loudly on that one...