The XX Factor

Iowa Voters Treated to Daffy, Homophobic Robocall

Iowans received robocalls from a group called Citizens for Honesty and Sound Marriage
Iowans received robocalls from a group called Citizens for Honesty and Sound Marriage

Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Today states are tabulating votes and activists on either side of various issues are celebrating or rending their clothes. Without taking a vote, however, I think we can safely declare the Best Robocall for the Year, and perhaps for eternity, courtesy of a group calling itself Citizens for Honesty and Sound Marriage in Iowa. Iowa voters lucky enough to receive this robocall were treated to this bit of daily uplift: “Homosexual marriage obviously involves homosexual sex. So before you support Liz Mathis, call her at 319-899-0628 and ask her which homosexual sex acts she endorses.” The group presumably hoped to help the Republican candidate defeat Mathis, with an eye toward a legislative repeal of the recent court decision in Iowa legalizing gay marriage.

The true source of the robocalls, as is custom, is being concealed, with the most likely parties issuing denials replete with feigned outrage. But this mystery is the least in a series of questions provoked by this call. The most prominent that comes to my mind is, “What are these homosexual-specific sex acts that Citizens wants us to imagine?” Granted, I’m writing this without having undergone my complete morning coffee regime, but I’m truly drawing a blank in imagining what kind of stuff gay people do in bed that straight people don’t do. I can think of one sex act that you really can’t perform unless you’re working with an innie and an outie, but in all my years of listening to the Savage Lovecast, I can’t say that I’ve heard a single gay caller mention an act reserved only for gay people. Frottage, mutual masturbation, anal sex, oral sex, and even just a little making out? Maybe Citizens didn’t get the message, but straight people can do all those things, and generally take full advantage.

Which leads me to my second question: How many people had to sign off on this robocall? Did not a single one of them realize that straight, married people can do it in the butt (which is the “homosexual sex act” that I suspect obsesses the homophobic activists behind this)? Maybe this robocall is a cry for help. Maybe a generous donor can mail Citizens some copies of The Guide to Getting It On, so they can see that you don’t have to be gay to venture beyond a foreplay-free missionary-position encounter performed in five minutes in the dark.

The third question that occured to me probably should have been the first: Do the people behind this call know you don’t have to be married to have sex? Not even in Iowa. Not even in the butt. The number of “homosexual sex acts” prevented by banning gay marriage probably hovers around zero. Even if you accept the bizarre premise that stomping out “homosexual sex acts” is a project worth your time, you’re not going to accomplish it by banning gay marriage.