Iowa Legalizes Gay Marriage, Vermont Would Do Well to Follow
By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Iowa's Supreme Court ruled this morning that a state ban on gay marriage violates the constitutional rights of gays and lesbians. Good for the court.
That brings to three the number of states where people of the same sex can get married. A fourth, Vermont, has a bill legalizing same-sex marriage that has passed both houses of its legislature and now awaits the governor's promised veto. Bad for the governor (and I say that as someone who spent his college years in the Green Mountain State).
The same-sex marriage issue makes me crazy because it seems to me such a clear-cut issue. Yes, marriage is a religious institution and the notion of two men or two women marrying flies in the face of some religions (or more precisely flies in the face of the way some practitioners interpret their religion's tenets). But marriage is also a civil institution, with all sorts of legal implications regarding inheritance, hospital visitation rights, and so forth.
So if some religious institution wants to be bigoted ... well that's their business. But the state should not affirm that sort of bigotry.
Of course, the Iowa decision will set off a firestorm as conservatives and preening demagogues try to use the issue to work their supporters into a lather.
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Tags: Iowa | Vermont | marriage | gay rights
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Reader Comments
Iowa Judicial Ruling on Same Sex Marriage
Amending the Constitutional righs to afford special consideration to a group that is politically connected to the judiciary by infiltration is not democracy. It is the tyranny of the power of authoritarian rule. Bare in mind that Hitler's implementation of National Socialism was implemented by the judiciary and the police power of the state. The judiciary by US Constitution purpose is supposed to be an informative body to the legislature in redirect legislation that violates the laws of the US Constitution. But the US Supreme Court established the precedent that with activist rulings overstepping the advisory and informative legal opinions that should have confined itself to rewriting of poorly written and incorrect legislation by the US Congress. As such the US Congress has abdicated their authority to the US Supreme Court. By Doing so the State Superior Courts have followed suit and now we have the police power of the country being wielded as a rapier across this country in complete violation of the very US Constitution that these bozos swaore on the Bible to uphold with their very own lives.
Huh wha?
So you're saying it's not the state Supreme Court's role to rule on constitutional issues? The Supreme Court's role is to schedule a referendum for voters to decide matters of constitutional law?
Yes, I guess we've all missed that point, alright.
Gay marriage isn't the point here . . .
I'm sorry, but you guys just aren't getting it. Ones stand on gay marriage should have nothing to do with ones objection to this ruling. For me anyway, it's all about the court thinking it can overstep what the state constitution allows it to do. Let's say the court ruled that the death penalty was legal in Iowa. Wouldn't you want the right to vote on that before the state started sentencing convicted murders to death? In other words, it's all about whether or not the people have the right to determine what happens in this state, whether you want to live by judicial fiat or by the consent of the governed.
Every voter - and I'm talking to each and every one of you - should call their state legislators and the Governor and tell them they need to stop this ruling from going into effect until the people can vote on this issue. And they need to support HJR 6 and get it through the legislature now.
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