New Iowa Truth Revealed

                                                                                           

In Iowa?

 

Yes, in Iowa, where the lightly tasked U.S. Census Bureau counts around three million people while the much-busier United States Department of Agriculture counts around seventeen million hogs.

 

In Iowa, where the highest point in the state is in someone’s feedlot and where the term “square mile” finds its deepest meaning.

 

In Iowa, where the state’s Supreme Court yesterday said a 1998 law defining marriage as only possible between persons of the opposite sex was blatantly unconstitutional, violating equal protection provisions. The ruling was unanimous.

 

The Iowa court’s common sense on the explosively divisive gay marriage issue moves the debate from the Coasties in California and Massachusetts to the heartland. And while there’s certain to be chest-thumping and posturing from all sides, the hope is that the heartland’s bone-deep common sense will eventually drop the issue and get back to something productive, like hogs.

 

If  Iowa manages it, the rest of us should give it a try.

 

A great deal of human misery has come from our nasty habit of treating “different” and “evil” as synonyms. It becomes an especially virulent affliction when it springs from some revealed truth of whatever brand. Then the folks who want to make outcasts of those who are different can wrap themselves in the Truth Revealer’s Will.

 

It allows them to scream “pervert!” in front of the home of a committed gay couple and then go back to their own homes to oil up the mink-lined handcuffs, secure in the knowledge that the Truth Revealer approves.

 

So here’s a proposed New Iowa Revealed Truth, revealed to me in front of this computer keyboard, which is less dramatic but lots more comfortable than from a mountaintop burning bush or a visit from an angel:

 

Mind Your Own Business and Mind Your Manners

 

That pretty much covers the ground. I happen to like women, but that’s my business. If you’re a guy who likes men or a gal who likes women or an equal-opportunity type, that’s your business. Minding our own business mandates that each of us doesn’t care what the other does, as long as it doesn’t interfere with what we do.

 

The second part is equally important. Talking in public about what you and anyone else do in private is just bad manners. If you enjoy whatever you do, good for you –but keep it to yourself. Talking in public about what others do is also bad manners, whether it’s to cheer, condemn or offer technical pointers. Keep it to yourself.

Like many revealed truths before it, the New Iowa Revealed Truth will be easier in revelation than in practice, but it’s worth a shot.

 

In Iowa.

 

And beyond.

 

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