Celebrating differences in Iowa

July's here and celebrating among other things, the grass growing and our cattle getting fat.

Just returned from a Midwest tour. Drove a small economy car through Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa, to Minnesota. After two mosquito-free nights in Minnesota, we turned that car around and returned to Kansas, which you should know, was determined in a joint publication by Texas State University and Arizona State University, after extrapolating a pancake to the size of Kansas, the pancake had more varied topography than Kansas. Thereby establishing Kansas is flatter than a pancake. Seems that way driving through it, so did Iowa. But Iowa can surprise you.

Iowa has a population 3,002,555 (2008). The capital is Des Moines. The highest elevation is 1,670 feet. The state has no major sports teams and ranks 26th in the nation with a size of 56,272 square miles.

A rural state, and according to Wikipedia, the safest state to live in with the most literate and best-educated population. Famous for its corn and soybean fields, it legalized same-sex marriage in April. Way to go Iowa.

What a great nation they prove us to be. Without great show, the seemingly innocuous folks of Iowa, cornfed, public educated, quietly going about their business of watching prairie grass and corn fields grow, developing a few green energy windmills joined five other states in recognizing all Americans have the right to pursue happiness. And if disillusioned with that happiness can dissolve it in a divorce like any other red-blooded American.

As a nation in the past we have tried separation of rights for certain disfavored people regarding the right to vote, owning property, and even the right not to be considered as property. But the separation of those rights did not last, to the benefit of this nation. We are beginning that process again.

Iowa's legislative decision is exciting because Iowa is not a hotbed of liberals like say Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire. It is smack dab in the middle of the heartland of the Midwest. A regular place, producing people like Bill Bryson, Johnny Carson, Buffalo Bill Cody, a few Nobel peace prize winners and Mammie Eisenhower, regular folk.

Iowa recognizing the rights of all individuals to be married is as important as how it happened. There were no guns, no military uprising, no government overthrow, or tanks in the streets. No bodies burned in front of the media, no bombs, no embassies closed. A nation of well over 300 million people, rarely agreeing 100 percent on any one idea at any one time, and never agreeing on some, accepted Iowa's decision.

When we could not agree for a few tense weeks in November 2003 about who would be our next president we did not rise up with terrorism or violence. Not one shot was fired. We waited on the rule of law, in what we believe.

July we celebrate what our Founding Fathers declared with their independence from British rule. We celebrate on the fourth as a proud nation. We have our flaws sure, because we are governed by ourselves, simple humans. But we are a people of great courage, ability and compassion. Iowa surprisingly reminds us of that and that calls for a celebration.

Marie Johnson is a Carson Valley rancher.