Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty
will meet with Iowa's largest anti-gay marriage group next month.
According to the Des Moines
Register, Pawlenty has agreed to sit down with The Family Leader,
a newly created umbrella group that includes the Iowa Family Policy
Center.
“It looks like in February we are
going to be hosting Governor Pawlenty in Iowa,” the group's
president, Bob Vander Plaats, said.
The 50-year-old Pawlenty is considered
a moderate Republican, but an earlier decision to appear on the radio
program of the American Family Association's (AFA) Bryan Fischer
raised eyebrows.
In that appearance, Pawlenty,
a possible 2012 presidential candidate, said that as president he
would work to reinstate “Don't Ask, Don't Tell,” the
soon-to-be repealed law that bans gay and bisexual troops from
serving openly.
The Family Leader is the state's most
vociferous opponent of Iowa's gay marriage law. Vander
Plaats worked to oust three of the seven Iowa Supreme Court justices
who ruled favorably on the issue and is pressing lawmakers to
impeach the four that remain. The group is also working with
Republican lawmakers to approve legislation that would begin the
process of placing a gay marriage ban in the Iowa Constitution.