Does Culver Want to Forget his Transgender Day of Remembrance?
- Tuesday, January 5, 2010, 4:30
- Iowa, News Center, Top Story
- 925 views
- 18 comments
The Culver Administration has been getting grief recently over a public hearing about the state budget in which the public didn’t know about. The only notice of the meeting was a flyer on a bulletin board located inside the Iowa Capitol. Public meetings, however, are not the only thing that Governor Culver and his staff are trying to keep quiet.
In late November, Governor Culver signed a proclamation declaring November 20th, 2009 a “Transgender Day of Remembrance.” The ironic part of Governor Culver’s Transgender Day of Remembrance is that the political arm of the Iowa Family Policy Center needed to file a Freedom of Information request to get a copy of the proclamation.
IFPC Action President Chuck Hurley commented on the Governor’s proclamation by saying, “Governor Culver not only failed to keep his promise to the people of Iowa concerning the defense of marriage, but now is using the power of his office and the dignity of the state of Iowa to promote sexual confusion and deviant behavior.”
Culver’s Transgender Day of Remembrance came the day before the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson Jackson Dinner which featured Vice President Joe Biden. During his speech, Governor Culver pledged his support gay and transgender couples. That part of Culver’s speech received the loudest applause at the event.
Hurley added, “Iowans know that Governor Culver does not share their values. As if the Governor’s unwillingness to exercise the influence of his office in the defense of marriage wasn’t evidence enough, we now know that he is spending his time creating special days celebrating sexual disorientation. The question that Iowans ought to be asking is why Governor Culver wasn’t proud enough of his work to make his actions public?”
A search of the Governor’s web page returned no statement and no press release concerning the Transgender Day of Remembrance proclamation, and a copy of the signed document was not available for review. Other proclamations are available through the governor’s web page, as are all of the press releases dating back to just two days after his election.
Hurley continued, “Governor Culver needs to understand that Iowans are not impressed by the way he has used his term in office. Standing idly by as marriage, one of the pillars of a healthy society, is under attack, failing to assert the authority of his office to preserve the constitutional separation of powers, all the while spending our state into a fiscal desert that will lead to a heavier tax load is unacceptable.”
Hurley is planning to attend Governor Culver’s 2010 Condition of the State speech on January 12. In conjunction with IFPC Action’s “LUV Iowa” (Let Us Vote) campaign, January 12th will mark the beginning of the “Two Days for Marriage” initiative. A large crowd is expected to show their support for marriage at the capitol on that day.
Information about LUV Iowa and the “Two Days For Marriage” initiative can be found at www.LUVIowa.com
About the Author
Craig Robinson has written 700 stories on this site.
Craig Robinson serves as the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheIowaRepublican.com. Prior to founding Iowa's largest conservative news site, Robinson served as the Political Director of the Republican Party of Iowa during the 2008 Iowa Caucuses. In that capacity, Robinson planned and organized the largest political event in 2007, the Iowa Straw Poll, in Ames, Iowa. Robinson also organized the 2008 Republican caucuses in Iowa, and was later dispatched to Nevada to help with the caucuses there. Robinson cut his teeth in Iowa politics during the 2000 caucus campaign of businessman Steve Forbes and has been involved with most major campaigns in the state since then. His extensive political background and rolodex give him a unique perspective from which to monitor the political pulse of Iowa.
18 Comments on “Does Culver Want to Forget his Transgender Day of Remembrance?”
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Theocracy in action
Actually, it’s democracy in action. Culver tried to hide this because he knows the voters won’t look favorably on it. Are you proud of your governor for his cowardly actions here?
I am happy the Governor supported the Transgender community yes. I am also proud of the Governor for supporting the Supreme Court decision on marriage equality even if he is personally opposed to the idea of same sex marriage. At least he understands that America was not founded to be a Theocracy.
Then why not be “out and proud” about supporting the “Transgendered” community, Vast? Having to get a FOIA request for the Governor to release a proclamation? I mcan cmon…who does the Governor think he’s fooling? I would think that LGBT community would be ashamed of a public official who claims to “support” them but throws up a wall of secrecy about it.
Cant have it both ways Vast….
In trying to please everybody, Culver pleases nobody. The story of his governorship.
Hawk, unless you happen to be Governor Culver himself I seriously doubt that you have any real idea of whether or not he is ashamed of the proclamation. I do wish he had done a much better job of announcing it, and I do think he and his staff needs to do a much better job of announcing things like budget hearings. The idea that he was purposely trying to hide the proclamation or the budget hearings is pure speculation.
Yes, I’m sure it was just an accident that there was no press release and that this proclamation was not on the governor’s website, unlike all the other proclamations he issues, which are all on his website. I’m sure that was all just an accident so that VV can still be proud of his governor. Looks like he’s living in an alternate reality (called denial).
Scott, can you prove it was deliberate?
Can you prove that you were born gay?
Vast….reality check here…
Every single proclamation that the Governor has issued has come with a press release and listed on the Governor’s website…except THIS one. And then….having to issue a FOIA request.?? For a proclamation??? Get real! This is something that someone on the Governor’s staff should have been able to email a copy of in 5 minutes.
Your willingness to deny the very clear reality that Culver has on MULTIPLE occasions has blocked or tried to block access to public information. The Des Moines Register, no friend to the Republican Party, has even called out Culver on his unwillingness to be open to the public.
For the first two years of his term, Culver REFUSED to use his state-email account, instead choosing to use a private email account from his campaign for public business. Now why would he do that? Only after the Associated Press called on him to release copies of the emails sent from his private account, did Culver begin using his state provided account.
Culver’s office CUT OFF access to Iowa Dept of Economic Development records concerning the activities of the Iowa Film Office and who and what they were giving out “tax credits” for…
Culver’s office refused to grant the press a FULL COPY of the internal investigation done by the Dept of Human Services regarding the Henry’s Turkey Service scandal in Atalissa….instead choosing to give a redacted, two sentence statement concerning the state’s findings…
So Vast…keep on living in denial…when its very clear that Chet Culver and his administration have a long history of trying to hide the truth. This is par for the course for the Culver Administration.
Scott, your changing the subject. As for your question, no I can not prove it beyond doubt because the causes of a person’s sexual orientation are not highly understood yet. I can prove that I personally never made a conscious decision to be gay, and you can’t prove that I wasn’t born gay. However proving one way or another that I was born gay or not has nothing to do with proving one way or another that the Governor deliberately tried to hide the signing of the Transgender proclamation.
Hawk, as I asked with Scott, do you have proof that it was deliberate. Are you absolutely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that no other proclamations didn’t get a press release? Also, is it the responsibility of the Governor’s office to publicly announce these proclamations? Is he required to do so by law?
And Hawk, I don’t deny that Culver has a very bad track record when it comes to transparency of records, but that is not what Craig Robinson is writing about in this post. He is trying to say that the governor deliberately tried to hide the fact that he signed this proclamation and shame the Governor not for his lack of transparency but for his lack of support for the Biblical version of marriage while at the same time driving support to the LUV Protest and the movement to return me to second class citizenship.
Vast… you really can’t be THAT ignorant….
1. If the Governor is making a “proclamation”…that means its a PUBLIC STATEMENT. Meaning that it falls under all public records laws….As I’ve demonstrated very clearly, Governor Culver has a POOR track record of transparency. This is just ANOTHER example of how Culver only lets people see what HE wants them to see.
2. You say you don’t want to be treated like a “second class citizen”…ok..I would say that the Governor is treating you as JUST THAT..by trying throwing up a wall of secrecy around this proclamation.
If Culver TRULY supports the LGBT community…..where’s the press release? Where’s the “Pride”. I would think LGBT activists would be disgusted by leaders like Culver who are more than happy to take their campaign $$, but aren’t proud enough to put something like this out there for the public to see.
According to the Register’s story on the proclamation it is the policy of the Governor’s office that the organizations requesting the proclamations are responsible for their publication and not the Governor’s office itself. So please show me where this wall of secrecy is coming from.
digging a damn deep hole VV. Face it dude, he cashed your check and then lied to you.
Hey VV, time to stop; this is a head game and you’re not going to win this one. They’re pulling the same lines on you that we pulled on the religious right about dubya. The more they protested the more they looked like kool-aiders.
Now it’s their turn and you may as well let em just play it out cuz you ain’t gonna come out looking good by protesting.
He didn’t cash any check from me, I don’t donate to political campaigns or organizations. Culver hasn’t lied to me about his position on Marriage Equality. I know he doesn’t personally support it. I’m also well aware that Culver isn’t the best Governor. Like every politician that has come before him from both parties he is far more concerned about getting re-elected than he is about the issues. The sad thing is I don’t see any of the potential Republican candidates being any better.
So when picking the person I will vote for come November I can only boil it down to the basics. Who is the bigger threat to my civil rights? Culver or the Republican candidates? Right now its the Republicans who are being pulled around by their noses by the Theocratic right.
Now, if they were to find me a Republican candidate who stood up for small government, individual liberty, and my constitutionally protected equality then they would probably win my independent vote.
Ignorance must be truly bliss to you VV.
Back in January 08, Culver stated the following: “We’ll do whatever it takes to protect marriage between a man and a woman”..He even went so far as to say that he wouldn’t rule out calling a special session of the Legislature, if the courts ruled gay marriage legal.
But then..just a week after the Varnum decision…Culver went back on his word…hailing the IA Sup Ct decision.. He pulled a Kerry…he was against it before he was for it..
As for your reference to the Register quote about Culver’s staff claiming that its up to the organization to decide if they want it publicized….now that is the biggest load of BS that I’ve heard…you really think that a LGBT organization would REQUEST that the Governor’s office not publicize something like this…but to go so far as to tell the Governor’s office they wanted it buried like they did? VV, if you believe that Culver is as pure as the wind driven snow here, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you along with some ocean front property in Arizona.
Hawk, the Transgender proclamation actually was published by One Iowa, in November so I think that kind of rules out the idea that the Governor was trying to hide it. If the IFPC had actually been reading the One Iowa site, which I kind of figured they did any way since they are always bashing the group, they would have seen the publication of the proclamation as well as a PDF copy of the proclamation itself and could have saved themselves the time and effort of the unneeded FOIA request.