Sen. Michael Gronstal is the Democratic Senate Majority Leader who has consistently prevented such resolutions from moving forward and he has already vowed to protect all of Iowa's families -- including its gay and lesbian families. And he kept his senate seat during the last election, which bolsters his ongoing resistance to allowing Iowa Republican leaders to undo the 2009 Supreme Court decision that struck down the state's DOMA law and allowed its gay and lesbian citizens to share in the rights and responsibilities of marriage.
The 2012 Des Moines Register notes that 56% of Iowans oppose a constitutional amendment to define the state's marriages as only between one man and one woman compared to 38% who want to constitutionally ban marriages like mine.
Meanwhile, the Iowa City Patch notes that one of those 18 GOP sponsors is a Johnson County Republican: Sen. Sandy Greiner of Keota, IA. Her particular district includes parts of southern and western Johnson County. Johnson County boasts one of the densest areas of LGBT presence and families. It's sometimes easy to forget that not all of my immediate neighbors actually support marriage equality.