Under Pressure Iowa’s The Family Leader Removes Link To Anti-Gay Seminars Framing Homosexuality As Public Health Threat Similar To Smoking

The Iowa Independent reports that The Family Leader, a coalition of quasi-conservative Christians that seems to exist solely to repeal Iowa’s same sex marriage legislation, has removed a link on its web site to a seminar series that frames homosexuality and its “second-hand effects” as a public health threat similar to smoking. Julie Summa, director of marketing and public outreach for The Family Leader, said that the seminar series has not offered for approximately two years, but until Tuesday, a link to the seminar’s web site was available to anyone who registered for e-mail alert on the group’s 99 county Capturing Momentum Tour. The Family Leader’s phone number is listed as contact information for anyone interested in booking the seminar. When asked why, if the series seemed suspended for two years, it continues to be advertised on The Family Leader’s web site, Summa said it was a error. “The Second Hand Effects link shouldn’t be on our ‘Capturing Momentum Tour’ web page, which was created from an old template,” she said. “We plan to remove it as you are correct, we do not currently offer the seminar and have not had a full seminar in about two years.” The Family Leader was officially founded in November, 2010 to act as an umbrella organization for the Iowa Family Policy Center (IFPC) and Marriage Matters. On the IFPC home page, the group’s longtime leader — Chuck Hurley — is quoted as saying, “Because of their unwillingness to correct the error of last April’s Iowa Supreme Court opinion, the Iowa Legislature is responsible for sanctioning activities that will lead to dramatically higher rates of HIV and syphilis in Iowa.” “The Iowa Legislature outlawed smoking [in some public places] in an effort to improve health and reduce the medical costs that are often passed on to the state,” Hurley said at that time. “The second-hand impacts of certain homosexual acts are arguably more destructive, and potentially more costly to society than smoking.” Days later the IFPC published information in its blog entitled: “What’s Worse — Smoking or Sodomy?”