Vander Plaats and the Iowa Family Leader are at the forefront of a misinformation campaign to support the anti-equality effort. Vander Plaats, currently on a 99-county tour intended to solicit support for the Family Leader and rally social conservatives, regularly compares gay marriage to polygamy and incest, telling audiences, "Why not open it up! Bisexual, polygamy, multiple women? Why not?" Earlier this year, Vander Plaats was caught on video railing against "absolute tolerance" during a campaign stop.You have to see this nonsense to believe it. Vander Plaats on "the homosexual lifestyle":Most outlandish, however, was the Family Leader's comparison on its website of homosexuality to secondhand cigarette smoke. (The Family Leader later removed the link to www.SecondHandEffects.com, a website which asserts that homosexuality reduces life expectancy by up to 35 years and promotes the idea that homosexuality is a curable disease.)
VANDER PLAATS: When you take a look at it, this isn't the Family Leader, but say the New York Health Department. They've put out an ad basically highlighting all the dangers of the homosexual lifestyle, that you're this many times more to get this particular disease or this many times more to get this other type of disease. Now, they conclude with "practice safe sex." But they're almost taking our talking points. Because anybody, the Journal of Medicine will back us up on this, that this is a risky lifestyle, health risk lifestyle. If we're teaching the kids, "don't smoke, because that's a risky health style," the same can be true of the homosexual lifestyle. That's why I think we need to speak the truth once in a while.