The following is a guest commentary by Sen. Matt McCoy of Iowa.

As an openly gay legislator, I’ve never been more proud of my state than when the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in favor of the freedom to marry this April.  Iowa is a special place, with a history of civil rights leadership and common sense values.

Last year, my fellow fair-minded legislators and I were able to stop four successive attempts to undermine the unanimous decision by the Court.  Legislative leadership in both the Iowa Senate and the Iowa House threw their full support behind the ruling, even asking what took so long.  With support from allies like the Victory Fund and One Iowa, we successfully framed the debate in the weeks after the decision.

Still, I knew it was only a matter of time before big money out-of-state extremists set their sights on Iowa.  This week the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) started flooding rural Iowa with nearly $90,000 worth of ads trying to scare Iowans into voting for an anti-gay legislative candidate.

This is not an isolated effort, but an organized and well-funded assault on civil marriage equality across the country. The same extremists that bankrolled ballot initiative efforts in Maine and California are now spending money to buy an election in Iowa.

NOM refers to their “Reclaim Iowa” campaign as a “targeted intervention” into Iowa politics.  Who exactly is it that plans to “reclaim” my state?  I doubt these divisive ads are being funded by Iowans.  More likely, they are funded by out-of-state extremists in an attempt to overturn Iowa’s marriage laws.

Perhaps the most troubling part of this is that NOM has not been forthcoming about the source of their funds.  NOM has a history of funneling money into anti-gay measures across the country, while promising to keep their donors hidden.

I hope you agree with me that Iowans deserve to know who is influencing their elections.  NOM has made clear this is only the beginning of their foray into Iowa politics.  We can expect a renewed effort in the 2010 election by anti-equality legislators who seek to amend the Iowa Constitution.  In return for their support, NOM is prepared to spend huge sums of money to elect hostile legislators in 2010.

Please take a moment to sign One Iowa’s petition calling on NOM to disclose who is funding their anti-gay campaigns in Iowa and across the country.

It will take a national effort to protect the freedom to marry in Iowa and across the country. Thank you for your continued support.