Iowa City man's 'two mothers' video making media waves again

Last year's YouTube video that aligned the national spotlight on the Iowa City man with two mothers has made another surge.

There is more Facebook and Twitter chatter about Iowa City resident Zach Wahls, whose powerful speech to the Iowa House of Representatives on the merits of family and his opposition of House Joint Resolution 6 to end civil unions in Iowa moved the nation. The proposed amendment was ultimately dropped, and the 20-year-old's video has been picked up again by national media outlets after MoveOn.org's civic action Web site embedded the video on its homepage Thursday, and the video has reached nearly 13.5 million hits on YouTube.

Watch the video here (story continues below video):

"This is a boy who likes speaking, loves leading," said his biological mother, Dr. Terry Wahls, author and clinical professor of internal medicine at the University of Iowa. "He's a very remarkable kid."

Remarkable, but also remarkably normal, which he stressed in his public address, citing he is the person he is today because of the loving environment in which he was raised.

"I'm not really so different from any of your children," Wahls said to the House, adding later, "I scored in the 99th percentile on the A.C.T. I'm actually an Eagle Scout. I own and operate my own small business. If I was your son, Mr. Chairman, I believe I'd make you very proud."

Wahls said her son dropped out of  the University of Iowa to continue public speaking and to write a book, which according to his "Ask Me Anything" chat hosted on Reddit.com Thursday, is tentatively titled, My Two Moms: Everything I needed to know about gay marriage I learned in Boy Scouts.

"It's a lot of attention to get when you're 19. So far he's made great decisions," Terry said, noting he continues to be poised and focused, and purposes to re-enroll to complete his engineering degree at Iowa in 2013.

Aside from the social struggles the Wahls family said they've endured for years, Terry was diagnosed with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis in 2000. But she turned her health around with her family's care, and a specialized diet, stimulation and exercise regimen she created and is now promoting, including lectures with the New Pioneer Food Co-Op and Kirkwood Community College, she said, noting her willingness to recover and tell the community about it, instilled in Zach a desire to follow her lead.

"On a human level, we all understand equality or lack of equality," she said, noting that Zach and his sister Zebby have been more aware of and proactive on the issue of marriage equality than she and her wife Jackie have been at times.

When asked in the the Reddit chat if he had political aspirations, Wahls said he'd much rather work for a politician than become one.

"Over the last nine months, I've had a small taste of what it's like to have your life put under a microscope, and I don't like it... I had plenty of scrutiny from skeptical folks when I was growing up. I'm hoping I can escape that at some point," he said.

Terry Wahls said they'll just have to wait and see where his goals take him in two years.

"His life is a moving target," she said.