Bob Vander Plaats, the president of the
Christian conservative group The Family Leader, is under fire for
laughing at a fag joke, the
Iowa
Independent
reported.
Video of Vander Plaats laughing at and
complimenting – “Oh shoot, that's pretty good.” – an audience
member's off-color joke during a March stop in Audubon, Iowa surfaced
on Tuesday.
“You know what my wife says?” an
unidentified man is heard saying. “She says: Iowa, the state where
you can't smoke a fag, but you can marry one.” (The video is
embedded in the right panel of this page.)
While Vander Plaats erupted in
laughter, the gay rights group One Iowa wasn't laughing.
The group called on Vander Plaats to
apologize in a message to supporters titled Shame on you, Bob!
“Vander Plaats has said he loves all
Iowans, and that he is only speaking the truth,” said Troy Price,
executive director of One Iowa. “Well, if he is telling the truth
when he says that he is not mean-spirited, then he should apologize
quickly for his actions.”
The Family Leader is the group behind
the much ballyhooed anti-gay marriage pledge rejected by all but two
2012 presidential candidates: Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and
former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.