Jennifer Jacobs

The Des Moines Register

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Northeast Iowa Republicans have taken a libertarian bent on marriage, a message that activists on both sides of the same-sex marriage debate consider a significant development.

In a statement issued Saturday after the 1st Congressional District GOP convention, delegates insist their desire to have the government stay out of marriage does not signal support for gay marriage. But it has outraged many Iowa social conservatives and may be the first crack in the Iowa GOP's opposition to same-sex marriage, which has been legal in Iowa since 2009.

"We're still very passionate about the understanding that marriage is between one man and one woman and God," said Loras Schulte, a 1st District resident and a member of the Republican Party of Iowa's State Central Committee. "We'd like to see our government out of the marriage business."

But the possibility that removing the government from regulating marriage could become part of the Iowa's GOP platform has triggered shock waves among social conservatives.

"I'll leave this party so fast it will make (Gov. Terry) Branstad's head spin if this happens," the Rev. Cary Gordon of Cornerstone World Outreach in Sioux City, Iowa, wrote on Facebook. He lives in the 4th District. "And I'll tell a lot of people to come with me — very loudly — and sit back and watch this state get exactly what it deserves."

Numerous polls have shown that opposition to same-sex marriage is waning as a social and political issue in Iowa and across the country. And some voices within the Republican Party have argued for de-emphasizing the issue as a way to attract younger voters and independents.

But it will remain a litmus test for Republican candidates running in Iowa's 2016 leadoff presidential caucuses, a wide range of political observers said in interviews earlier this month marking the fifth anniversary of the Iowa Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage here.

Mere discussion was 'momentous' step

Mainstream Republicans and evangelicals dominated Saturday's congressional district GOP conventions and voted out Ron Paul-inspired, liberty-movement conservatives who orchestrated a coup on the state GOP headquarters two years ago. A slate of 16 State Central Committee members that GOP Gov. Terry Branstad and Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, supported was voted in.

Whether Republicans elsewhere in Iowa will warm to this position on marriage is hard to predict, but just the fact that it's a topic of discussion outside of private conversation is a big deal, activists said.

"It's just not something we've debated out in the public yet," said Ryan Frederick, a member of the State Central Committee from the 3rd District. "What is momentous about what happened in the 1st District is that this debate has finally happened on the convention floor."

Frederick said he still stands by the traditional Republican position — opposition to the Varnum v. Brien Iowa Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage.

"That's something I've adhered to for years," Frederick said. "Not that we shouldn't have the debate. I'm open to that."

Republicans on Iowa's eastern side tend to be less staunchly conservative than their counterparts in western Iowa. The 1st District includes Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Dubuque.

Republican Trudy Caviness, who was elected Saturday to represent the 2nd District in southeastern Iowa on the state GOP board, said she's not sure if Republicans statewide are still firm in their rejection of same-sex marriage.

"Eight years ago I would've said 'yes,' but I think there's been a lot of discussion on it," she said. "I don't know if they're willing to change their mind."

Personally, Caviness said she doesn't see herself changing.

Vote came in effort to pare platform

Republicans in the 1st District said the changes to the plank on marriage came about because of a larger effort to scale back their platform into a more readable and relevant document.

The state platform is drawn from the platforms from the four districts, and some Republicans believe that the state's document, with its 400 planks, drifts into the weeds.

Iowa's governor is one. He told The Des Moines Register in 2012 that the most ardent activists control both parties' platforms and that most people don't read them.

In February 2013, the 1st District central committee members sent a letter of guidance to Republican officials in district's 20 counties suggesting they boil down what they believe. When the statements from the counties were combined and duplicate statements were condensed, the marriage plank was inadvertently left off a master list, said Tim Busch, chairman of the 1st District GOP's platform committee.

Liberty Republican Tony Krebsbach, who was among those voted off the state GOP board Saturday, said he pushed to add a traditional-marriage plank. But several attempts failed.

Krebsbach proposed the plank about no government control only as an alternative to leaving the platform silent on the matter, he said. Religious conservative activist Judd Saul of Cedar Falls, Iowa, said the vote was 116-89.

"I begged people to stand up, I shouted stand up for morality!" Saul wrote on Facebook. "No one else other than the 89 stood. I shouted at the ones sitting down and called them moral cowards. They threatened to remove me and called the sergeant of arms."

David Chung, who was re-elected Saturday to the state GOP board representing the 1st District, wrote in a post on his HawkeyeGOP.com blog that "this issue is one that has my head spinning."

"Liberty folk around the state are pointing their fingers at the 1st District and saying, 'See the establishment has no principles' because they adopted the Libertarian (live and let live and keep the government out of it) position," Chung wrote. "Likewise, they criticize the establishment for ignoring young people, yet this is one of the biggest issues that keeps young people out of the Republican Party."

Busch said he suspects a strong majority of 1st District Republicans believe in one-man, one-woman marriage, and that shouldn't get lost in a platform debate over the government's role.

"We're more in agreement than not," Busch said. "This platform effort is intended to emphasize the commonality and stop using the platform as an encyclopedia of ways to divide us."

Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds' declined to weigh in on the 1st District's new stance.

"The governor and lieutenant governor believe in traditional one-man and one-woman marriage," spokesman Jimmy Centers said. "(They) do not try to influence or counsel delegates on what planks they should or should not offer and support."