DES MOINES (Reuters) - Gay couples lined up before dawn on Friday to apply for marriage licenses after an Iowa judge scuttled the state's law against same-sex marriage ... Judge Robert Hanson of the Polk County District triggered the license land rush when he ruled on Thursday that Iowa's law restricting marriage to a man and a woman was unconstitutional. His ruling faces appeals by state officials who want it reversed, but in the meantime the window was open. Read the rest here.
Des Moines. Iowa. The heartland of America. Imagine. And give thanks!
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And yes, ... of course it was too good to last: County stops taking same-sex marriage applications
16 comments:
Of course it won't last ... will likely go the way of the San Francisco moment-in-the-sun ... but it should be a source of encouragment to those working for liberty and justice for ALL in this country that you don't have to live on one of the coasts to "get it."
It figures that you would rejoice in judicial tyranny imposing one judge's personal opinion over the laws of a state. Looks like the judge realized that his overreach of judicial review was going to have real ramifications (i.e. impeachment of his sorry behind) and stayed his ruling.
Hopefully this becomes a political issue that drives some of the Democrats from the Iowa State House. Even moderates (not that I'm one) get ticked off by judges declaring themselves to be unelected legislators.
FrMichael
This has nothing to do with liberty and justice. Marriage is a form of support that society gives in the form of benefits. Gays have all the liberty they need. It isn't just to give benefits that encourage people to harm themselves and their prospective partners, while diluting the system of benefits given to those who create mother-and-father families. -- J
FrMichael -- Like the judges who declared themselves "unelected legislators" and issued the Brown v Board of Education ruling in 1954?
J -- "Gays have all the liberty they need?" Tell that to GLBT couples who are denied over 1100 civil rights their heterosexual married counterparts enjoy.
PS -- And remember, I come from the state where our legislature actually PASSED marriage equality legislation that was vetoed by our governor who said it was a MATTER FOR THE COURTS TO DECIDE!!!!!!!!!!
How crazy making is THAT???
I'm also from CA and agree with the Governator was crazy to make that statement. He should have stood by his principles and either sign or veto the bill and be man enough to take the flak.
FrMichael
Didn't Proposition 22 settle this is California? The voters have spoken .... why do the courts or the legislature need to say anymore?
We love democracy when the vote swings our way, but loath it when the outcome is not in our favor. Then we become supreme backers of the representative republic or judicial activism.
Put the issue back on the ballot and try again!
Susan, yes. Or those "activist judges" who had the nerve to decriminalize interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia. Yet another example of horrific judicial overreach. :rolling my eyes:
J - I am raising two beautiful twin daughters with my partner of 16-1/2 years. Which rights, exactly, accorded automatically to married straight couples for the protection and benefit of their children are irrelevant to my daughters? Which rights, exactly, does my family NOT need, but straight-parented families do? Please elaborate. And while you are at it, please explain to me why it is, exactly, that my children are less deserving of those rights than are the children of straight parents.
No, Proposition 22 didn't "settle" the issue of marriage inequality any more than the Jim Crow laws "setttled" segregation.
And do you really, in your heart of hearts, believe that if in 1954 there had been an initiative on the ballot that "the people" would have voted to do anything other than preserve segregated schools? Of course they would have! We elect representatives to represent us in in California our representatives passed equality legislation and the governor vetoed it.
The bottom line is, separate is inherently unequal -- and whether it's the church or the classroom or the marriage license bureau -- I believe it's our job to keep it up til it is. Equal. For all. No * that say *unless you're gay or lesbian.
Without the courts, the south would still be segregated.
Without the courts, inter-racial marriage would be illegal.
spare me the arguments against "activist judges". conservatives run to the courts for relief whenever they disagree with the legislature and vice versa.
Let's not forget that "activist judges" desegregated the schools. And those good conservatives made death threats against children for the fact of being black, and daring to come to school.
It's simply all about keeping other people out and down, to make one's (conservative) self feel specially endowed.
Prop 22 is an example of the tyranny of the majority, aka mob rule. The Constitution of the US or the State exists in part to protect the rights of the individual against the mob.
perhaps "J" can tell us exactly how giving a faithfully committed GLBT couple rights privileges and responsibilities of marriage in any way "dilutes" the same for any straight couple?
Or do you simply feel "less special" if someone else gets the same deal you do?
I don't notice that my neighbours' marriages are in any way endangered by the two lesbians next door. I DO notice that my ability to protect my family, which includes 2 kids, is strongly hindered by not being granted the same rights as a straight couple. Yet the benefit to society is the same: stable families who are members of their community are good for everyone.
IT
Rev. Susan --
What you need to understand is that there's a difference between rights and privileges. Privileges include benefits. Rights are things like freedom of assembly, speech, and so forth, and gays have all that. But there are very good reasons why benefits should go to mother-and-father families and not to homosexuals or unmarried heterosexuals. The cornerstone of all social stability is male-female marriage. All you have to do is look at the inner-city areas to demonstrate that: lack of a mother-father families have become the norm. 90% of kids there who don't have a father around while growing up have run-ins with the police, compared with only 10 percent who do have a father around. This is by far the best indicator of whether or not people will be involved in the various forms of social pathology. It is important to take from the common pool of benefits in order to bolster social stability. It is equally important not to create the same privileges for those who are, in most cases, harming one another emotionally and physically. -- J
"J" -- I do SO love it when folks start out with what "I need to understand."
Thanks for your concern about my "needs" ... let me return the favor.
What YOU need to understand is that there's difference between the freedom to hold biased, bigoted, ignorance infused opinions held by an individual (and expressed so well in your comment above) and the license to inflict those opinions in the civic arena where we pledge allegience to "liberty and justice for all" -- not just all whose "lifestyles" you approve of.
The corner-stone of social stablity are the values that make up a family -- not the gender of the partners who make up a family. Centuries of sociological research demonstrates that the one-man-one-woman-2.0-children-nuclear-family-as-the-"cornerstone" of "all social stability" (PUHLEEZE!!!) is actually a mid-century American norm which hasn't been the healthiest thing for ANYBODY ... Mom, Dad, Kids OR culture.
And if I'm sounding a little crabby it's because [a] it's 110 here again today and [b] I'm sick unto death of defending against this kind of ignorant polemic and the hubris to presume that you have both the right AND the privilege to inflict your bias on our families.
So I think I'll turn off the computer and go grill a hot dog. That'll cheer me up!
Happy Labor Day!
Rev. Susan,
I admit to ignorance on many matters, and so I'll defer to those who are well informed, in particular David Blankenhorn, who makes a massively documented case on the subject of families without fathers in his book "Fatherless America." There IS a difference between men and women! It's not just a matter of values! As for people imposing their values, well, that is exactly what society has done since the dawn of history when it began giving special honors and benefits to mother-and-father families starting with the engagement party and continuing beyond death. The sometimes bitter, sometimes joyful crucible of human experience has demonstrated the tremendous wisdom of this. -- J
Well informed, or simply well-armed to produce propaganda, J?
Before you even start, I agree propaganda can come from both sides, but you don't seem to be able to recognize that it comes from your side, as well.
Also, please remember that research is only as good as the researcher's intentions -- 99% of all statistics lie.
For the Governator to use the courts to cover his veto is just stupid, in my opinion. Not a word I use often, either. But he has every right to veto any legislation he cares to - that's part of the "checks and balances" built into our system of government.
FrMichael -- Like the judges who declared themselves "unelected legislators" and issued the Brown v Board of Education ruling in 1954?
No; in Brown vs. Board of Education the judges performed a properly judicial function, in that they found a local law denying a particular right in violation of a higher one (the Constitution, IMMSC) that was clearly written to protect that right. That's not "judicial activism", that's what the judges are supposed to do. Now, I haven't read the Iowa ruling. But I'll hazard a guess that if he or she quotes any higher law, it was in fact never written or intended to protect any right to homosexual "marriage".
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