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DES MOINES, Iowa - The Iowa Supreme Court legalized gay marriage Friday in a unanimous and emphatic decision that makes Iowa the third state and the first in the nation's heartland to allow same-sex couples to wed.In its decision, the high court upheld a lower court's ruling that found a state law restricting marriage to between a man and woman violated Iowa's constitution.
"We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective," the Supreme Court wrote in its decision. "The Legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification."
Iowa is currently more progressive than California, haha. Zair fucked around with this message on 04-03-2009 at 01:38 PM.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
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Blindy. still thinks SARS jokes are topical, as evidenced by:
Iowa's about as liberal as the heartland states get, who knows.
You don't need a supermajority to change Iowa's constitution. I'm sure they can get 51% of the population to vote for a ban amendment.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
The California Supreme Court was hinting during oral arguments that a way to maintain the CA constitutional process and reconcile Prop 8 with the original constitution is to disallow the state from granting marriages to anyone. So the only thing that would matter would be the "civil union" or domestic partnership papers which everyone can get.
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Dr. Geeing:
...to disallow the state from granting marriages to anyone.
Bingo.
Marriage licenses are an old Jim Crow law that was intended to control and restrict interracial marriage. The state has no place deciding who can have a union with whom or what that union should be called.
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Maradon! had this to say about pies:
Bingo.Marriage licenses are an old Jim Crow law that was intended to control and restrict interracial marriage. The state has no place deciding who can have a union with whom or what that union should be called.
One of the problems I've felt hasn't really been addressed adequately in this whole argument is the distinction between marriage as a civil construct vs. marriage as a religious state of being.
There's nothing wrong with any church, temple, synagogue, mosque or whathaveyou saying "These are our rules and conditions for us to marry you in our church. Follow them or suck it up." Their church, their rules. Heck, my wife and I aren't considered to be "officially" married in the eyes of the Orthodox Church, seeing as how I'm an unbaptised heathen from a vaguely Protestant family. But as far as the state is concerned, it's all good. And I feel that this lack of distinction between civil and religious marriage is keeping more progress from being made.
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Dr. Gee had this to say about Pirotess:
Prop 8 Part 2: Electric BugalooThe California Supreme Court was hinting during oral arguments that a way to maintain the CA constitutional process and reconcile Prop 8 with the original constitution is to disallow the state from granting marriages to anyone. So the only thing that would matter would be the "civil union" or domestic partnership papers which everyone can get.
This is the solution libertarians have been putting forward for years.
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Did someone say Naimah:
This is the solution libertarians have been putting forward for years.
It's a damn good solution.
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Mr. Parcelan had this to say about the Spice Girls:
Yeah......but Libertarians.
OMG AD HOMINEM
"Don't want to sound like a fanboy, but I am with you. I'll buy it for sure, it's just a matter of for how long I will be playing it..."
- Silvast, Battle.net forums
Not sure which one would be easier to sell the (literal) conservatives on though.
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Naimah had this to say about Optimus Prime:
This is the solution libertarians have been putting forward for years.
I've been signed on to it for a while too, but people (some members of my family) start getting emotional about, "ARRGH! YOU'RE TAKING MY MARRIAGE AWAY!" Which is funny since these are the people who have told me that their marriage only matters after the pastor blessed it, not when the state gave them the documents.
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Callalron had this to say about Jimmy Carter:
There's nothing wrong with any church, temple, synagogue, mosque or whathaveyou saying "These are our rules and conditions for us to marry you in our church. Follow them or suck it up." Their church, their rules. Heck, my wife and I aren't considered to be "officially" married in the eyes of the Orthodox Church, seeing as how I'm an unbaptised heathen from a vaguely Protestant family. But as far as the state is concerned, it's all good. And I feel that this lack of distinction between civil and religious marriage is keeping more progress from being made.
Kinda reminds me of how France is a bit progressive in this area. Anyone getting married has to do the civil union in court in order for it to be legal. Doing the ceremony in a church, et al is literally ceremonial and can be done in addition to but can not replace the civil process.
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Over the mountain, in between the ups and downs, I ran into Zair who doth quote:
Giving everyone a 'marriage' or everyone a 'civil union' would both work.Not sure which one would be easier to sell the (literal) conservatives on though.
"Almost right" is still wrong.
As long as government has the power to impart favor or disfavor upon one group or another, groups will always wrestle to help themselves or to harm other groups. The only solution is to absolve government of the ability to grant favor.
Even if they granted every couple "marriage", or took marriage away from heterosexual couples and made everyone "civil union", do you think the marriage defense crowd would just give up? And since it's manifest that they have numerical superiority, we'd be right back where we started within a few years. Maradon! fucked around with this message on 04-04-2009 at 08:41 PM.
I don't know about you guys but I never use terminology that is not the 100% accurate legal term.
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Maradon! probably says this to all the girls:
"Almost right" is still wrong.As long as government has the power to impart favor or disfavor upon one group or another, groups will always wrestle to help themselves or to harm other groups. The only solution is to absolve government of the ability to grant favor.
Even if they granted every couple "marriage", or took marriage away from heterosexual couples and made everyone "civil union", do you think the marriage defense crowd would just give up? And since it's manifest that they have numerical superiority, we'd be right back where we started within a few years.
But wouldn't the same concern apply if state governments completely stopped recognizing unions? It would seem to be just a matter of time until the numerical superiority of the people who would want governmental recognition brought it back.
Giving everyone the recognition and legal rights that go along with being in a union of some name seems like a much better compromise.
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Over the mountain, in between the ups and downs, I ran into Dr. Gee who doth quote:
But wouldn't the same concern apply if state governments completely stopped recognizing unions?
Unfortunately, yes, but it's not a precisely equivalent political arrangement. Setting aside the fact that absolving government of the power to grant and deny marriage licenses is logically the only correct thing to do if we're actually looking for equality and not just an error to correct an error, it drastically limits the number of people who can change the system.
Currently, a court can decide who can and cannot marry by way of reinterpretation of existing law. (Incidentally, this gives a legal advantage to groups that can afford better lawyers (ie. the rich), or who can fish for favorable courts.) State governments can decide, or the executive branch of government can decide like it almost did under Bush.
If the power to issue marriage licenses were simply removed from government at all levels, the only people who could decide to put it back would be the united states congress, and do you really think they'd go out of their way to do something that not only harms a special interest group, but has a rock solid and easily defensible rationale? They can even play the race card and bring up the fact that marriage licenses were used to prevent miscegenation! AND THEY'D BE RIGHT!
The jesusfreaks care about sullying the concept of marriage. Calling a gay union a marriage does this, in their perception. Calling a marriage a civil union would be even more offensive because it drags all marriages "down" to the level of a gay union, but government washing their hands of the matter would place 100% of the power over whose union is called what into the hands of their church. Do you really think, in such an atmosphere, that a marriage defense crowd would get as many donations? Maradon! fucked around with this message on 04-05-2009 at 02:30 PM.
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Over the mountain, in between the ups and downs, I ran into Blindy. who doth quote:
How would changing the legal term from "married" have any impact what so ever on married couples?I don't know about you guys but I never use terminology that is not the 100% accurate legal term.
I don't care and you don't care but apparently there are a lot of people who do, otherwise we would not be discussing this issue.
Way to be part of the problem, Blindy.
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Blindy had this to say about Robocop:
Some one needs to tell me what business the government has in telling people who can and can't get married/have sex in the first place (outside of sexual preditor type situations, obviously).
Why, every government knows what's best for your money, your property, your livelihood and your state, so why shouldn't they know what's best for your marriage?
Wow, if that isn't a colossal Fuck You to the governor of Vermont, I don't know what is. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
