DES MOINES — Under a chilly, overcast sky, two rallies took place at the Iowa State Capitol building. One encouraged Iowans to vote against the retention of three Iowa Supreme Court justices before they embarked on a statewide bus tour to reiterate the message. The other — whose rally took place first — wanted Iowans to vote to retain the judges.

The bus tour is being supported jointly by the Family Research Council and the National Organization for Marriage and is targeting the three justices, who were a part of a unanimous decision declaring the state ban on same-sex marriages unconstitutional.

“I remember standing there with [state] Sen. Nancy Boettger, discussing how we would get the final language into the code and what it would be,” Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said to the crowd. “It was your voice, the voice of the people who wrote the Defense of Marriage Act.”

King was a co-author of the 1998 Iowa Defense of Marriage Act then as an Iowa state senator.

King appeared along with Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Texas; Republican National Committeewoman Kim Lehman; National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown; and Concerned Women of America state director Tamara Scott for a kick-off rally at the state Capitol in Des Moines.

They stood outside a black and purple bus with Montana plates and detailed graphics saying, “Support Iowa families” and “Vote ‘no’ on activist judges.” The bus also features photos of each of the three justices up for retention with “No” written across their faces.

“These judges are rope judges, and they are arrogant,” King said. “In their arrogance, sitting up there looking down their nose at you right now thinking … they know what’s best and they’re going to set social policy without regard to the Constitution or the will of law.”

But in a conference call later in the afternoon, leaders of the Human Rights Campaign and the Courage Campaign said NOM is currently in court trying to keep its donors secret against current campaign finance law, and they will be sending a tracker to document the bus tour.

“These people are really on the fringe — they’re out of touch with America,” said Rick Jacobs, founder and chairman of the Courage Campaign. “Nobody turns out for them … They understand that history is against them and America is a just country that believes in equality — that’s the history of this country.”

Jacobs said NOM’s goal was to cause trouble, create division and “use the speech that leads to suicide.”

The counter-rally a half-hour before the Judge Bus rally at the Capitol featured former Lt. Gov. Art Neu, Republican and co-chairman of Fair Courts for Us, and a speech by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and drew a similarly sized crowd.

Supporters of retaining the justices, like former Iowa Supreme Court justice Mark McCormick, said the campaigns against them are simply to intimidate courts away from making unpopular decisions. Brown and King seemingly confirmed that sentiment Monday, although they say it’s about judicial activism, not voting on popularity.

“You send a message to these judges on Nov. 2, and I will tell you, it will echo all across this land in all 50 states,” King said to applause from the crowd.

“The whole country is looking at you,” Brown said. “What kind of country are we? Are we a country in which seven judges can take the entire Constitutional and common-law history of marriage and throw it aside and the people will not have a say, or are we a country where the people of Iowa are going to stand up and say, ‘Enough is enough’?”

The groups represented on the Judge Bus tour want judges around the country to know if they don’t rule the way “these extremists” want them to, they will be targeted by “anti-gay extremists” to be removed from the bench, claimed One Iowa executive director Carolyn Jenison in a conference call later.

Some members of the first rally in support of the judges stood by waving signs reading, “Vote Yes, Yes, Yes,” while the other crowd held yard signs reading, “No Activist Judges.” At times, they shouted back at the speakers, such as calling NOM the “National Organization against Marriage.”

Several of the speakers have made comments sometimes deemed controversial, including King saying on Iowa radio that President Barack Obama had a “default mechanism to favor the black person.”

Gohmert made controversial comments in June and August, claiming women from the Middle East were flying to the United States to give birth to “terror babies” who would then be U.S. citizens.

Lehman caused an uproar recently when she suggested Obama was not an American citizen.

Former Iowa Attorney General Bonnie Campbell also spoke at the counter-rally and expressed fear that the campaigning against the justices could wreak havoc on the Iowa judicial branch by voting out too many justices or by encouraging more political campaigning around the judiciary.

Opponents of NOM have also alleged Catholic and Mormon churches were largely funnelling money into their campaigns.