Friday, April 3, 2009

Huzzah for Iowa!

The Iowa Supreme Court has unanimously voted to uphold the rights of same-sex couples to marry.

 
Image shamelessly stolen from Think Progress. 
UNANIMOUSLY. 
That's simply amazing.  They held that "the Iowa statute limiting civil marriage to a union between a man and a woman violates the equal protection clause" of the state constitution. And further added that religious doctrine and views are unaffected by this ruling and a religious denomination could could still define marriage any way they wanted.  Thus removing the idea that this decision would force churches to marry whomever appeared at their doorstep.
Wow. Vermont and Iowa in the same week.  Who'da thunk.
Of course, the Republican Senate Leader has already stated calling for a constitutional amendment to "protect" traditional marriage and define as between one man and one woman.
Wake up and smell the coffee, ass hat.  We're moving on without you.

5 comments:

Pseudo said...

I love the word asshat. and I'm very proud of Iowa. Did not know they had it in them.

Sidhe said...

Excellent news!

Every state should follow suit, today!

Chris said...

Finally someone has some sense of constitutional law! Leave it to the state of my birth, God bless um! Can't believe Iowa is more far thinking than Calif! This is surely good news for those in my family, as well as our large gay family of friends.

Wild Child said...

YAY! My home state, Iowa! We do have it in us and we do have a proper sense of justice! Unanimously!! Couldn't get any better than that. Check out my post.

Anonymous said...

This was a really, really good decision. A model for other state supreme courts to follow when trying to walk the tightrope between the religious right and the Constitution.

Admittedly I did not realize that Iowa was so legally avant garde in having abolished slavery and segregation well before the rest of the states.

People are much more vigilant now. i don't think those amendments will slip through anymore.