Lottery Winners Hope Visiting Team Psyched Out By Pink Locker Room

Iowa residents Brian and Mary Lohse are using $3 million of their recent $202 million Powerball win to build a new football stadium for their son's high school team, The Blue Jays, which is a nice and generous.

They had a not-so-nice stipulation, though: the opponents' locker room must be pink, to, as Mary Lohse said, "put them in a certain soft frame of mind."

From the Des Moines Register:

As for the pink locker room, that was Mary Lohse’s sense of humor kicking in with an undying love of the Hawkeyes.

"I was sort of half joking and half not I suppose, but they said they’d do it," Mary Lohse said of her scheme, inspired by the University of Iowa visitor’s locker room of the same color (pictured).

"It’s supposed to put them in a certain soft frame of mind … it will certainly give all the players something to talk about," she said.

This development comes after Ohio State University football coach Urban Meyer apologized in March for punishing team members by making them wear lavender jerseys to shame them.

As the reader who sent this along pointed out, if the Lohse family wants to engage in these kind of mind games, why not just go the extra step and write gay slurs on the locker room's walls?

News: Ft. Bragg, Indiana Gay Nup Ban, CIA, Iowa Question

The European Court of Human Rights unanimously ruled that the CIA tortured, shackled, beat and sodomized detainee Khaled el-Masri, a German national they claimed had ties to terror groups.

Pennsylvania GOP state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe is going to introduce a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage there. "It is important that we support traditional marriage and have constitutional amendments to protect it at the state level. Marriage is a common good, not a special interest. Special interests should not have the right to redefine marriage for all of us," he said.

Conservatives in Texas are looking for new ways to prohibit abortion, while liberals and concerned doctors in Wisconsin and North Carolina are fighting back against other right-wing attacks on a woman's right to choose.

The new The Knife album is coming soon. Get excited here.

The new poster for The Wolverine movie moves!

Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo look beefy on the set of Foxcatcher.

Drew Barrymore debuts new baby Olive on People cover.

Matt Bomer does some pre-holiday shopping.

On marriage equality and affirmative action at the Supreme Court: "Justice Anthony Kennedy is likely to be the swing vote in these cases, and many are predicting he will side with conservatives to limit racial preferences and with liberals to support gay marriage. Paradoxically, the very reasoning that could guide Kennedy to support marriage equality may bolster his decision to curtail race-based affirmative action, spurring colleges to adopt new approaches."

The UK Network Rail Service turned CCTV footage of three ladies' embarrassing escalator moments into a PSA.

Expect to see a lot of nude Matt Damon for his turn as Liberace's long-term lover Scott Thorson in the biopic Behind the Candelabra: "I had to come out of the pool, go over to Michael Douglas, straddle him on a chaise lounge and start kissing him... It's not like I kiss him just once. We drew it up like a football plan."

Congratulations to new married couple Larry Duncan And Randell Shepherd, the Washington couple who became famous after a picture of them getting a marriage license went viral. Even though neither is particularly religious, they still married Sunday in a church. Said Duncan, "Enough people have told me, 'God hates fags. I want someone in a church to say, 'God loves fags,' to have that stamp on it."

The University of Iowa is now asking applicants if they identify as LGBT, making it the first public university and only the second school in the nation to do so. "This is a question whose time had come. We think this will cause them to look more closely at the university because we value that part of who they are. We want students to feel we are receptive to and sensitive to their lifestyle and their description of themselves," said admissions director Michael Barron.

Stephen Saland, one of the four GOP New York Senators to support marriage equality, has conceded defeat in his November election against Democrat Terry Gipson.

Fresh Deepwater leak? "CBS News has learned that BP is set to embark Thursday on the fifth day of a little-known subsea mission under Coast Guard supervision to look for any new oil leaking from the Deepwater Horizon disaster."

Equality and cents: "Gov. Mitch Daniels said Wednesday he has been hearing from companies that fear that a measure that would put Indiana's ban on same-sex marriage into the state constitution might also prevent firms from offering benefits to gay couples"

Ashley Broadway believes she is being excluded from the Association of Bragg Officers’ Spouses in North Carolina, because she is a lesbian. "The facts here are simple: there is no legal need or justification for any spouse to be excluded from a group like this, which exists to provide support to the spouses and families of our military men and women and the communities they serve," said Outserve-SLDN Executive Director Allyson Robinson.

Are One Direction band members truly fascinating?

University of Iowa is First Public Institution to Ask Applicants About Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

The University of Iowa has added an optional question to its application asking potential students about their sexual orientation and gender identity, becoming the first public institution to do so, Inside Higher Ed reports:

To date, only Elmhurst College has such questions (although some colleges include gay/straight alliances among the list of student groups in which a prospective applicant may express interest). But Iowa will be the first public institution to add the question to its application about student identity, not interest. While colleges routinely ask about applicants' racial and ethnic background, among other topics, they have until now shied away from asking about sexual orientation, even as some gay rights advocates have pushed them to do so.

Advocates see Iowa's move as significant, given that it is a flagship university. "This is a huge deal in that it shows any campus that it can do the same thing," said Shane Windmeyer, executive director of Campus Pride, which promotes the interests of gay and lesbian students in the college admissions process and once enrolled.

Two changes have been made:

Under the gender question, a dropdown menu now includes transgender along with male and female. And in a series of optional questions about parents' educational background, interest in fraternities and sororities, interest in Reserve Officers Training Corps and other matters, Iowa now asks: "Do you identify with the LGBTQ community?”

Despite Fierce Campaign by Anti-Gay Activists, Iowans Retain Pro-Equality Justice David Wiggins: VIDEO

Last election, anti-gay activists in the state of Iowa punished three Supreme Court justices who voted to legalize same-sex marriage in the state. Yesterday, they tried to punish a fourth, Justice David Wiggins.

But they did not succeed.

The Des Moines Register reports:

Wiggins, 61, needed a simple majority of votes to stay on high court. With 83 percent of Iowa’s 1,689 precincts reported, Wiggins had 54 percent.

“As I understand the numbers, I think we did get a decisive win” that hopefully will prevent future challenges to judges, said Iowa State Bar Association Cynthia Moser. “We’ve very pleased with the numbers we received.”

Bob Vander Plaats, head of the Iowans For Freedom committee that spearheaded a campaign to oust Wiggins, conceded defeat late Tuesday. However, he said the apparent small margin for retention was “not a great validation for Justice Wiggins.”

Thousands of voters on Tuesday repeated the message sent two years ago that they didn’t want the courts to make law, Vander Plaats said. “I think the courts understand that people of Iowa still have a voice if they chose to go outside their constitutional boundaries.”

Said HRC President Chad Griffin:

"Iowans have made a strong statement for judicial independence and refused to let politics get in the way of judges doing their duty to uphold the law. Right-wing groups trying to exact political retribution on judges should learn their lesson. Marriage equality remains the law of the land in Iowa and judges will continue to do their jobs."

One Iowa writes:

Here at One Iowa, we are also celebrating a victory by Senator Mike Gronstal in Council Bluffs who has put his career on the line in defense of marriage for all loving and committed couples and has led Iowa in the right direction. With his reelection, voters sent a clear message that Iowans stood up for Senator Gronstal because he stood up for Iowa families. We look forward to working with Senator Gronstal and the pro-equality majority in the upcoming legislative session on the issues that matter most to Iowa families.
 
Justice Wiggins withstood the attacks by anti-equality forces in this state and was retained by the voters of Iowa. With the retention of Justice Wiggins, we sent a strong message to Mr. Vander Plaats and his friends at the National Organization for Marriage: Iowans are proud of our state that values equal protection and all families.

Watch Vander Plaats react to the Wiggins retention, AFTER THE JUMP...

Reports Suggest Team Romney Plans On Misleading Voters: VIDEO

Maybe Mitt Romney's team is worried he can't beat President Obama in Wisconsin and Iowa or maybe Mitt has just never had to play fair in his life.

Regardless, ThinkProgress has unearthed documents and video that suggest Romney's camp is hoping to mislead or disqualify voters in Wisconsin and Iowa to benefit his campaign.

With regard to Wisconsin, Scott Keyes reported earlier this week that the Romney campaign has been giving poll watchers an erroneous handbook misrepresents the law, or in some cases simply lies.

One blatant falsehood occurs on page 5 of the training packet, which informed poll watchers that any “person [who] has been convicted of treason, a felony, or bribery” isn’t eligible to vote. This is not true. Once a Wisconsin voter who has been convicted of a felony completes his or her sentence, that person is once again eligible to vote.

The training also encouraged volunteers to deceive election workers and the public about who they were associated with. On page 3 of the packet, Romney poll workers were instructed to hide their affiliation with the campaign and told to sign in at the polls as a “concerned citizen” instead.

As for Iowa, the campaign had posted a video on YouTube in which they instructed poll watchers to make sure all Iowa voters have an ID and to report any who do not. If someone fails to show an ID, they are instructed to "alert the legal team so they can handle the problem". But there is no problem, because there are no voter ID laws in Iowa.

Realizing they had been found out, Romney's team took the misleading video down, but ThinkProgress preserved it and you can watch it AFTER THE JUMP.

Competing Bus Tours Vilify, Defend Iowa Supreme Court Justice

Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins was the center of attention today as two competing bus tours kicked off to attack and defend the Iowa Supreme Court Justice whose career is on the line this November.

On one side there stood the likes of failed presidential candidate and former Sen. Rick Santorum, perennial gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats and others who are trying to oust Wiggins for participating in a unanimous 2009 decision allowing marriage equality in the Hawkeye State. Three other justices were voted out in 2010.

"Justice Wiggins used the Constitution and twisted it to undermine the other thing that our founders understood to be necessary – virtue," said Santorum, according to the Des Moines Register.

He also told his bus' crowd that Wiggins and his peers' unanimous vote amounted to "tyranny of the oligarchy, the tyranny of people who believe they should determine what’s best for us.”

On the other side, driving their own bus directly in the wake of Santorum et al's campaign, there stood Democrats and other allies who are fighting to keep Wiggins on the bench. But their campaign is more about keeping politics out of the judicial branch than a debate about morals, as the right would have it.

"We don’t want to return to the days where politics have been injected into our system, and remove the fair and impartial courts that we have, [that are] well-respected throughout this country," said Des Moines-based attorney Guy Cook.

Both sides of this divide will be touring all week and hits a total of 17 cities, so watch out Iowa!