By Douglas Burns

Republican State Senate candidate Mark Segebart, a Crawford County supervisor.

He wore a red ascot. Seemed more than a touch too fastidious during those cartoon adventures. And Fred on “Scooby-Doo” never put the moves on Daphne. Come on, it was the early ’70s and Fred had a groovy van, man. Nothing shaggy going on with Daphne?

The reason is clear. I didn’t see it when I was 5 years old, eating pancakes and watching Saturday morning cartoons, but Fred is Fire Island gay. Velma, one of his sidekicks, is suspiciously lesbian, too.

Fortunately, I did not succumb to the lifestyle signals the cartoonists with the “Scooby-Doo” series were sending to my developing mind, Saturday by Saturday.

They failed. They couldn’t turn me gay.

Somewhere around the second-grade, when I turned off my Bugs Bunny radio and tried to fall asleep, my mind wandered to thoughts of my classmate Royale Kristofferson, her beautiful golden locks. Those curls. Would I kiss her one day? Could we be married? How could I be around her more during recess? Can 7-year-olds be in love? There just can’t be anybody more beautiful in the world, can there?

Fred and his ascot lost to biology. I’m hard-wired for attraction to women. TV couldn’t switch that — or even inspire a passing curiosity.

That’s not the story for everyone, says Republican State Senate candidate Mark Segebart, a Crawford County supervisor. Many people are vulnerable to the purveyors of the gay agenda, he says.

Television shows, movies and media coverage in general can make being gay seem like an awfully intriguing option, said Segebart, who is seeking to represent Senate District 6, a sweep of western Iowa that includes Audubon, Carroll, Sac and Buena Vista counties, and part of Crawford County.

“We need to change the way media — and I’m talking here Hollywood mostly — demonstrates what society should be like, the wrong image of gay people being something more than the rest of us, a protected class, does only more damage to those younger people,” Segebart said. “It puts pressures on them that they do not need.”

Segebart said being gay is an unnatural, manufactured attraction.

“The more you talk about it, the more it plants that seed in young, impressionable minds,” Segebart said. “Once you start thinking about something, it’s hard to get it out of your brain.”

Segebart’s views on homosexuality surfaced during a recent interview with The Carroll Daily Times Herald and Carroll Broadcasting.

It started with a question about his thoughts on school bullying, its roots and possible remedies. The issue is front and center in Iowa. Last month, Kenneth James Weishuhn, a 14-year-old from Primghar, killed himself reportedly in response to bullying that occurred after he revealed he was gay.

“I feel sorry for this 14-year-old boy that decided to commit suicide,” Segebart said. “There were pressures put on him that shouldn’t be put on any child, 14, 12, 10. The society we live in wants our kids to be grown-ups at 6 years old the way it seems to me.”

Segebart added, “It’s really unfortunate that this young man thought he needed to ‘come out’ so to speak when that was not necessary. He needed more time to be a young guy growing up.”

The political debate over homosexuality’s role in Iowa society now centers on gay marriage — which Segebart strongly opposes. He singled this issue out as one of the most significant for his campaign when he entered the race.

Simply put, Segebart, 61, said, Iowa can’t have two definitions of marriage.

“The whole position of every Christian Church that is in our communities is that marriage is between one man and one woman,” Segebart said. “By this (legalized gay marriage) passing, it makes bigots of every person that belongs to a faith community that believes in marriage between one man and one woman. Does that mean churches now will be accused of hate speech if they do not change the way they’re going to approach marriage and deny marriage between two gays?”

Traditional marriage is the foundation of American culture, said Segebart, a long-time Crawford County farmer and Lutheran.

“I think society has gotten to where we’re at because we’re putting our stock in one-man, one-woman marriage,” Segebart said.

Are people born gay or is it a choice?

“To me it’s more of a learned behavior than it is a genetic behavior,” Segebart said.

How did all of this gay propaganda fail to work on Segebart and me, and a lot of other men I know? Are we, like, you know, super-heterosexuals?

“Who’s to say it didn’t?” Segebart said.

Huh?

Watching “The Crying Game” or “Will And Grace” didn’t motivate me to start hanging around in men’s restrooms at airports or along the Interstates. I can say for certain that it never “worked” on me. I’ve never had gay on the brain.

“I don’t know why that is,” Segebart said. “I know that there are other forces at work in this world, and temptation is running at a high speed in this world and the world is full of evil.”

Does Segebart know gay people?

“Oh sure,” he said. “I don’t know that they’ve ever come out and said that to me, that that’s what they were. I think I know more people that could have been gay that decided it wasn’t the right option.” CV

Douglas Burns is a fourth-generation Iowa newspaperman who writes for The Carroll Daily Times Herald and offers columns for Cityview.