Iowa Conservatives Float Prosecuting Organizers Of Anti-Bullying Summit

Iowa state Rep. Greg Heartsill has been rallying his fellow Republicans against the Governor’s Conference on LGBTQ Youth, an annual event organized by the anti-bullying group Iowa Safe Schools.

On Friday, Heartsill spoke to talk show host Jan Mickelson, who frequently hosts GOP presidential candidates on his Iowa-based program, about the conference, and was also joined by Republican state Rep. Steve Holt.

Mickelson was so outraged about the event that he said that the organizers should be criminally prosecuted for violating obscenity laws, and Heartsill said that he plans to be in contact with the county attorney for Polk County, where the conference was held, to see if summit organizers broke the law.

“There’s possibility a criminal element,” Heartsill said.

Holt agreed with Mickelson’s assessment, claiming that the summit material “seems to violate Iowa law.”

“If this were attempted just a generation ago, there would be people in jail already,” Mickelson said, adding: “We really have quickly deteriorated as a culture.”