(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Steven King (R-Iowa) is calling for help to fight last week’s Iowa Supreme Court decision creating homosexual marriage in the heartland.
 
“I am asking for help from across the country, so that we get people that will come in and raise this issue, so that at least Iowans understand, by the time they go to the polls in 2010, the difference between marriage and same-sex marriage,” he said Tuesday.
 
King told CNSNews.com that “most Iowans don’t support same-sex ‘marriage’ ” – and don’t want judges to impose what he called “a radical redefinition of marriage.”
 
 “This is an unconstitutional ruling and another example of activist judges molding the constitution to achieve their personal political ends. Iowa law says that marriage is between a man and a woman,” he said.
 
King, now in his fourth term in Congress, said opponents will to try to get a constitutional convention approved in 2010 to overturn the decision.
 
Every 10 years, Iowa voters are asked on the general election ballot if they want to hold a constitutional convention. If voters say yes in 2010, one could be held in 2011.
 
The move will be difficult, King said, because it will have to be accomplished without the help of the state’s Democratic leaders.
 
Late Tuesday, Democratic Gov. Chet Culver broke his five-day silence on the decision, which was handed down last  Friday. Culver drew a distinction between “religious” marriage and “civil” – or secular – marriage.
 
“The Court . . . concluded that the denial of this right constitutes discrimination," Culver said. "Therefore, after careful consideration and a thorough reading of the Court’s decision, I am reluctant to support amending the Iowa Constitution to add a provision that our Supreme Court has said is unlawful and discriminatory.”
 
One day earlier, the Democratic leaders of the Legislature said they would not allow legislative action this year to pass a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriages.
 
“It will not come up,” Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal pledged to reporters in Des Moines. 
 
In a joint news release issued before the decision, Gronstal and Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy had welcomed homosexual marriage to the state.
 
"When all is said and done, we believe the only lasting question about today’s events will be why it took us so long,” the legislative leaders said. “It is a tough question to answer because treating everyone fairly is really a matter of Iowa common sense and Iowa common decency. Iowa has always been a leader in the area of civil rights.”
 
Congressman King, meanwhile, said the civil rights language makes him angry.
 
“I don’t think they’ve examined it,” he told CNSNews.com. “I think they’ve gotten mentally lazy, when they say, ‘It’s a civil right to be married. Why are you discriminating against gays?’ But it’s not a matter of discriminating ‘against’ anyone – it’s a matter of bullying traditional marriage. The state has a vested interest in promoting traditional marriage.”
 
At the very least, King said, Iowa lawmakers should pass a residency requirement to keep Iowa from becoming a same-sex marriage haven.
 
“If this (decision) stands, and there is no act on the part of the Legislature to pass a residency requirement, we’ll see same-sex couples fly into Iowa for the weekend -- like they go to Las Vegas to get married today, they’ll come to Iowa, same-sex couples -- and they will fly back to places like Berkeley and San Francisco, where California has rejected same-sex marriage,” he said. 
 
King said he is still “royally ticked” by last Friday’s decision, which he excoriated as “a unanimous decision on the part of seven unelected Iowa judges who decided to take the law into their own hands and usurp the legitimate authority of the Iowa Legislature, that had just in 1998 passed a Defense of Marriage Act.”
 
The Iowa Supreme Court, ruling in the case of Varnum vs. Brien, upheld a 2007 lower court decision in favor of six same-sex couples who filed a lawsuit challenging the definition of marriage as a union between a man and woman.
 
“We are firmly convinced that the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective,” Justice Mark Cady wrote on behalf of the court.
 
“The legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification.”
 
Cady added: “This approach does not disrespect or denigrate the religious views of many Iowans who may strongly believe in marriage as a dual-gender union, but considers, as we must, only the constitutional rights of all people, as expressed by the promise of equal protection for all.”
 
King, meanwhile, said that 60 percent of Iowans support marriage as one man and one woman. If homosexual marriage comes to Iowa, if ought to be by the consent of Iowans, he added.
 
“If that is to be the case, it needs to be a decision made by the people through the legislature, not by a court imposing it,” King added. 
 
“If we lose the legitimate debate and Iowans make this decision, then so be it. That’s how it will be,” he said. “But we cannot allow seven judges to decide this policy that has meant forever marriage between a man and a woman without the people having a voice.”
 
King said Tuesday’s action in Vermont, where lawmakers overrode the governor’s veto and created same-sex marriage, “is a different kind of creature.”

State-sanctioned homoosexual marriage ceremonies in Iowa, meanwhile, will begin April 27, according to the Iowa Supreme Court.