Quote:
Originally Posted by Marce30
Neither. Too conservative for my taste.
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Spent a lot of time in both (22 years in Iowa). Iowa is NOWHERE near as conservative as Arkansas. Iowa is actually pretty progressive for no huge cities. It has a heritage of fairly tolerant Germans immigrants and a "live and let live" atmosphere for the most part.
Legalized interracial marriage over 100 years before federal government.
University of Iowa opened 157 years ago and granting men and women equal basis.
University of Iowa was first public institution to offer equal benefits to gay and lesbian couples.
In 1856 the Iowa Legislature passed an unprecedented act allowing Native Americans to remain in Iowa and gave them permission to purchase land.
The Iowa supreme court in 1868 desegregated schools
96 years before the federal government did in the 1960's.
As a result of desegregating schools, the University of Iowa was the first school to grant a law degree to a black man in 1879.
In 1869 the Iowa Supreme Court decided it is not consitutional to prohibit a woman from practicing law. As a result, the University of Iowa granted the first law degree to a woman in 1873.
In 1869 and 1870 one of the strongest suffrage movements was underway in Iowa, 50 years before it became the law of the USA.
In 1875 an Iowa City woman was the first to practice law before the US Federal Court.
In 1900 Carrie Catt was elected the first president of the National Women's Suffrage Movement.
In 1905 what was to become the NAACP was founded in Buxton, Iowa.
In 1911 John Lewis organized the AFL - what would become the largest labor federation in the world.
In 1915 the NAACP organized in Iowa.
In 1925 the National Bar Association was formed in Iowa. Today it is still the largest association of black lawyers and judges.
In 1934 the first permanent mosque in the United States was constructed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Iowa was chosen for its unique history of religious freedom.
In 1949 the state Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional for any business to not serve black people on equal standing of whites.
In 1976, Iowa repealed its sodomy laws, 25 years before the US Government.
In 1980 the Iowa Supreme Court ruled four years before the US standing that it is unconstitutional to modify the adoption or custodian of a child merely based on the race of the child or the parent.
In 1990 the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law, which was authored by Iowa senetor Tom Harkin.
In 2007 the Iowa Supreme Court rules unaimously that it is unconstitutional to bar gays and lesbians from marrying. It's the 5th state and the first non-coastal state to do so.
It's a strange state to do so - but historically Iowa has been quite a bit ahead of the curve on social policy. The main reason is it has a very firm constitution as far as equality and personal freedoms.
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