Zach Wahls Is Running For Iowa Senate
Seven years ago, Zach Wahls made headlines as the Iowa teen with two gay parents. The reason 19-year-old Wahls made news was because he stood at the Iowa House of Representatives and spoke about marriage equality. He gave an impassioned speech about his lesbian mothers and about gay rights.
“I'm not really so different from any of your children. My family really isn't so different from yours,” he said in the powerful speech, “After all, your family doesn't derive its sense of worth from being told by the state, ‘You're married—congratulations!' No, the sense of family comes from the commitment we make to each other, to work through the hard times so we can enjoy the good ones; it comes from the love that binds us. That's what makes a family.”
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It seems that speech from seven years ago had started him down the journey of entrepreneurship and eventually politics.
After making that speech in Iowa, Wahls later became the author of a bestselling book called My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength, and What Makes A Family. On top of that, he also, with the help of his sister, created a deck of playing cards portraying portraits of historic American women called “The Woman Cards.”
That said, Wahls also followed political endeavors and not just business ones.
Not only did Wahls launch a successful campaign to get the Boy Scouts to drop their ban on gay scouts, but he’s also about to graduate with his master’s degree from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Now, he will be using his experience and education to run for Iowa state senate.
“Funnily enough, the primary election is the same day as commencement, so I've been telling people that I won't be able to walk, but I'll be able to run,” he told the Iowa City Press-Citizen last December.
Wahls is running as a Democrat for the Iowa Senate District 37 seat, which has been left vacant by a retiring Bob Dvorsky. The primary election isn’t until June 5th, but if he wins that, and the general election, he would begin his term in January of next year.
h/t: Press-Citizen, Instinct Magazine, LGBTQNation
