Today my dad did
a swell write-up of
the judgment.
The Iowa Supreme Court recently overturned the law passed by the legislature defining civil "marriage" as "between a man and a woman". Their basis for doing this was the "equal protection" clause: the law took away rights of a class of citizens. The really fine part was that the Justices' decision was unanimous. Every single one of them recognized that the law was nothing but a way to legally codify discrimination. The final words were "AFFIRMED.
All justices concur."
In rendering their decision, they eviscerated the flimsy excuses continually regurgitated by those who are determined to deny equal rights to an entire class of American citizens. The Justices exquisitely dissected through legal (and logical) reasoning the standard dodges of: maintaining traditional marriage, religion, promotion of procreation, promotion of optimal environment to raise children, and promoting stability in opposite-sex relationships.
A straightforward opinion — written by a justice appointed by a conservative Republican governor — methodically guts one argument after another that for decades has been used to keep marriage the sole preserve of straight couples. "This class of people asks a simple and direct question: How can a state premised on the constitutional principle of equal protection justify exclusion of a class of Iowans from civil marriage?" Justice Mark S. Cady asked.
The answer? It can't.
The Government Accounting Office, as of 2005, had identified more than
1000 federal legal rights and responsibilities derived from marriage. The Plaintiffs identified over two hundred Iowa statutes affected by civil-marriage status.
It is wrong to disenfranchise an entire class of people of their civil rights, and to continue the historical reality that gay and lesbian people as a group have long been the victim of purposeful and invidious discrimination because of their sexual orientation.
Yup.
Comments (4)
Great write-up! I thought of blogging about this, but decided not to when you mentioned that you were planning to, and this is nicely done. I blog on another site and hope you don't mind if I link to this blog, over there.
This was a really nicely written decision. I'm astonished, frankly, and go Iowa!
@tulipsinspring - Oh man, the more people blogging about this, the better. Don't let me doing it stop you. In fact, link me to yours so I can read it and learn!
And please link whatever you'd like. :D
JT
@Zerowing21 - Thanks! I can give you a link here to a very quick post I did on Multiply, but it's not in depth. I have read the ruling kind of quickly and need to read it more carefully. But some of the language they used was all-out inspiring!
I think you can read the post on Multiply, but they have some restriction on commenting if you don't have an account there. Sorry. If I get a few minutes, I may do a longer post and put it on both sites, so I don't confuse everybody!
I linked to this post over there, so you may get some visits from my friends there.
Here's the link:
http://tulipsinspring.multiply.com/journal/item/454/Same-Sex_Marriage_Is_Now_Legal_in_Iowa_--_An_Amazing_Ruling_--_UPDATE?replies_read=15
Great write-up and I'm so proud of Iowa; they are absolutely right, marriage is in no way a religious institution, it is a legal contract that is a gateway for hundreds of rights and excluding a group of people from these rights based solely on their sexual orientation is ridiculous. It's unbelievable that this discrimination has lasted this long, and I really hope that other states follow Iowa's example.