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Marriage Equality

New Campaign Calls to Retain Pro-Marriage Equality Iowa Justice

Justice Not Politics Action is pushing for voters to retain Justice David Wiggins, who has been targeted by a right-wing group over his support for marriage equality.

Trudy Ring

Trudy Ring is The Advocate’s senior politics editor and copy chief. She has been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers and LGBTQ+ weeklies/monthlies, trade magazines, and reference books. She is a political junkie who thinks even the wonkiest details are fascinating, and she always loves to see political candidates who are groundbreaking in some way. She enjoys writing about other topics as well, including religion (she’s interested in what people believe and why), literature, theater, and film. Trudy is a proud “old movie weirdo” and loves the Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s above all others. Other interests include classic rock music (Bruce Springsteen rules!) and history. Oh, and she was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 1998 and won two games. Not up there with Amy Schneider, but Trudy still takes pride in this achievement.

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Trudy Ring

September 14 2012 5:35 PM EST

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An Iowa political action group is pushing for the retention of a state Supreme Court justice who is the target of a campaign to oust him because of his vote for marriage equality.

Justice Not Politics Action, an offshoot of nonprofit organization Justice Not Politics, is urging voters to retain Justice David Wiggins, who is up for a retention vote this year, The Des Moines Register reports. Three other justices who joined in the court's unanimous vote for marriage equality in 2009 were removed from office by voters when they came up for retention in 2010.

Iowans for Freedom, a branch of the antigay group Family Leader, is calling for voters to remove Wiggins from the court. "We are very passionate about our effort to restore integrity to the Iowa Supreme Court by ensuring the constitutional intent for the separation of powers," Iowans for Freedom chairman Bob Vander Plaats, who led the effort to oust the other justices, said in a news release earlier this month.

Justice Not Politics Action chairwoman Sally Pederson, a former Iowa lieutenant governor, responded that judicial retention should not be about political stances. "There are Democrats and Republicans out there who support the courts and who understand that it's important to keep politics out of the courts system," she told the Register.