This was brightly illuminated following the Iowa Supreme Court's landmark April 3 ruling that denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples violated constitutional equal protection provisions under the Fourteenth Amendment. I thought people would look at the ruling with some admiration for our state (and some have), but mostly it has sent a barrage of unfunny, unoriginal Iowa jokes and backhanded compliments flying at our faces. For me, the fact that pundits like Maureen Dowd continue to beat the "Iowa, of all places -- I mean, look at their white bread and corn fields and goats (Huh?)" drum shows just how ignorant and holier-than-thou people's attitudes really are toward "Middle America."
Even the simple terminology that describes the geographic location of our state has been kidnapped by people who want to use the term "Middle America" to describe simpletons.
I'd love it if people could learn the term "Midwest," but that's probably too much to ask. Because after spending the last week in California, it appears that many coastal peoples only know one fact about our state: that it is "somewhere in the middle." I am trying to imagine not being able to name the other 49 states in the union and identify them on a map, but apparently our public schools in flyover country are just too darned informative.
During our trip to Napa Valley, we bellied up to the bar in several tasting rooms and answered the inevitable "where are you from?" question. I made a point throughout the trip to always answer, "Des Moines" instead of "Iowa." It was somewhat entertaining to watch the confused faces finally, in most cases, make the connection and spit out the response, "Oh! EYE-oh-wah!"
Yes, EYE-oh-wah.
At one winery the response was, "Well, Iowa has been in the news lately."
"Yes," I replied. "I guess we have."
"Well, I think a lot of people expect that kind of thing to happen on the coasts, but not in Iowa."
There were a lot of things I could have said at that point, but I bit my tongue and just smiled and said, "Well, Iowa has quite a history of pioneering for civil rights, actually."
And it has. Iowa passed one of the nation's first civil rights laws in 1884. According to the Iowa Judicial Branch Web site, "the early Iowa courts were sometimes called upon to decide cases that involved volatile social or political controversies of the time...These decisions demonstrate legal foresight as well as deep and abiding respect for the values enshrined in our Constitution and Bill of Rights." As early as 1869, women were allowed to practice law in our state. In 1949, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld the decision to convict a downtown Des Moines soda fountain manager who refused service to two African-American customers. A New York Times op-ed writer recently acknowledged, in the same breath he used to make yet another tired "Iowa, of all places" remark, that his parents were an interracial couple who moved from Nebraska to Iowa to be married in 1958.
But the thing about Iowans -- except me, apparently -- is that we really don't care that much what everyone else thinks about us, nor do we expect you to know or care much about our state. We certainly don't toot our own horn or think much of those people who do. And that's probably a big reason so many people think we're a bunch of ignoramuses. But I would love to know upon which enlightened Iowa fact-finding mission these people came to their conclusions.
Before I get too punchy and thoroughly un-Iowan, I'll just leave you with a picture of my favorite T-shirt. (It's from SMASH, which has lots of great ones -- including the new "Iowa: The California of the United States" offering. Bold. Perhaps another sign the hayseeds are getting restless. Look out, coastal peoples: We'll take a side of sarcasm with our gay wedding tourism revenue.)
