Three days in Iowa

During the weekly Sunday afternoon drag show at the Garden, one of this state's handful of gay clubs, a crisis emerged. As audience members nursed their beers in the dim room, the performer scheduled to next step forward and twist and twirl to Madonna or Bette Midler or what-have-you was slow to emerge because he was struggling with his wigs backstage. The master of ceremonies, decked in his own long auburn hair and flowered dress, tried to soothe the restless crowd by explaining the seriousness of the situation.

"You've got to pin your hair in," he said, jutting his hip. "There's nothing more embarrassing than coming out, doing a twirl and your hair goes flying."

Applause. Laughter. And all was well.

Such concerns, it turns out, are not limited to Halsted Street. They extend to Iowa, where gay marriage is now the law of the land. That sudden, and some would say surprising, development makes the Hawkeye state a travel destination for gay people and their supportive friends who have never heard wedding bells so close to home.

Gay marriage took effect April 27, but there are no quickie marriages here: Iowa law mandates a three-day waiting period between applying for a license and walking down the aisle.

The good news is that there are tons of ways to make those three days fabulous. Plus, there are plenty of restaurants, mostly in the urban areas, where any couple can show up hand in hand, choose between the seared tuna and braised pork with pappardelle noodles and exchange a small peck with no one thinking twice.

The state's progressive infrastructure has been in place for years -- in some cases, decades. The state repealed laws or practices against interracial marriage, slavery and segregated schools decades before the federal government. It is one of a handful of states that has a law protecting students from sexuality-based harassment. And in case you forgot, Iowa helped launch President Obama.

Iowa's most enterprising business minds are starting to court the nation's gay travelers on the Internet, while B&Bs, restaurants and the most open-minded churches line up to lure the state's newest brand of tourist.

"We're hearing from a lot of couples who have been together for 20 or 30 years and don't want the pomp and circumstance; they want the piece of paper," said Christopher Diebel, who launched myiowagaywedding.com, a listing of gay-friendly businesses. "But since they have to be here for three days, they want to know what's a good hotel, what to do and where they can have a celebratory dinner before flying out."

Des Moines On a recent multiday swing though the state, I set off looking for the heart of progressive Iowa. It can be tough to find in some of the more rural patches -- or west of Des Moines -- but it was there: in the food, the accommodations, the arts and in a gentle Midwestern sentiment that is equal bits "live and let live," "don't ask, don't tell" and a belief that judgment is best left to the coastal elites. Or God.

It lives in places such as Ritual Cafe, at the western edge of Des Moines' clean, placid downtown, one of the few -- if not only -- businesses flying a pair of rainbow flags out front. Five years ago, Ritual's co-owner, Denise Díaz, 42, was working at another cafe when her boss told her that she and her partner hugged too long when saying goodbye.

"I almost walked off the job," Díaz said.

Ritual attracts a wide swath of clientele, from teens with laptops to hard-hatted construction workers on break. It has become an epicenter for the gay and lesbian community, a host for meetings, fundraisers and people who don't want to mess with the bars. It's also the kind of place where you will learn about the gay-friendly things going on in town, such as the weekly Sunday afternoon men's bike ride.

I showed up at the appointed hour and met Jeff Reese, 36, organizer of the ride, who said it is not a show of strength, just a bunch of friends riding together. In Des Moines, the show of strength is not needed. "I've been out since I was 14, and I remember what it used to be like," Reese said. "No one cares anymore. If you are a normal human being, people will accept you." He pointed across the street, to an old-school Italian restaurant decked in red, white and green, Tumea and Sons.

"We go there to eat and they come over here to drink," he said, meaning the Rio gay bar. "And no one [cares]. I wish it could be like that everywhere."

Iowa City The next day, I was off to Iowa City, which could be considered the most actively progressive corner of the state. Then again, it's a college town, so it's maybe not so surprising to find musicians jamming on a pedestrian mall, a mainstream bookstore with a large gay reading section or a university lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender student association so strong that it "takes over" a different straight bar every Friday afternoon (news of which bar is circulated on Facebook).

In fact, Iowa City is considered so progressive that there isn't much of a gay infrastructure. There's just one gay bar, called Studio 13 (it's kind of hard to find; the front door is in an alley), but that's because most gay people say they are at home anywhere.

One of them is Brown Street Inn, a B&B owned by a gay couple with six tidy rooms spread across three floors on a lovely brick street. Their quiet neighborhood is a short walk from the University of Iowa campus and all that it offers: restaurants with fresh, local ingredients; dark college bars and old-school lefty bookstores such as Prairie Lights, which boasts a second-floor cafe in a room where a local literary society met in the 1930s, hosting such luminaries as Robert Frost, Langston Hughes and e.e. cummings.

Quad Cities A completely different type of progressiveness sits 60 miles east: Davenport. Rather than the pastoral open-mindedness that can be found in much of the rest of the state, Davenport, perched on the Mississippi River, is an industrial, blue-collar city rooted in Democratic politics and home to one of the least likely gay districts in the country: four bars across the street from one another, loosely called the Rainbow District. Indeed, the bars do not hide their proclivities, flying rainbow flags out front of their worn brick facades on a quiet stretch of West 2nd Street.

In one of those bars, Connections, I met Rich Hendricks, 50, pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of the Quad Cities on an early Tuesday evening.

Hendricks, who was married to a woman before coming out at 40 and dedicating himself to a life of spirituality, is becoming a popular tourist destination unto himself. He has performed 16 wedding ceremonies since the law changed, six of them for out-of-state couples. He has seven more ceremonies on his calendar this summer, including for couples from New Orleans and Phoenix.