So we can expect a massive influx of new residents to the state? I don’t see it happening. I love it here because I grew up here. Are you asserting that gay couples will give up their lives in San Fran or NYC to move here and be married? Um… ok.
You might want to research the opposition to this ruling before you up stakes and move. It’s a bit ugly right now.
From the big metros? You’re probably right, it’s not likely. From other midwestern states? Probably a great deal more likely.
shrug Due to family commitments I can’t move for another year and a half anyways. That’ll give me time to get a good picture as to what might happen.
Should have a direction of whats up by then. Plenty of opportunity as a doc or an RX here.
Good luck!
Okay, this is my point. If it is so abundantly clear that this provision of the Iowa Constitution means that the state must allow homosexual marriage, then why is it just in the year 2009 that such a fact has become obvious to the studied judicial minds in that state?
It’s constitution has been in effect since 1857. Why didn’t Herbert Hoover, for example, while growing up in Iowa, note this provision and conclude that homosexuals must be allowed to marry? Did he “read beyond the plain meaning” of the Constitution?
Of course not, and I can’t help but think you all know that this argument is silly. You all know that the Iowa framers had no thoughts of legal gay marriage, and you equally know, without much speculation, that they all would have been appalled at the idea and would have clarified the document in a second if they had any idea that their words one day would have been used as a justification for same sex marriage.
Now, that’s not to say that in the year 2009 sentiments haven’t changed and that the Constitution in fact SHOULD guarantee equal rights in regards to marriage. But that fact doesn’t create a time machine to recreate what was done in 1857.
My only point is that it is dangerous to decide that idea X is a good thing and then knowing that there is no popular support for idea x, reread a basic fundamental right to idea x into your state constitution. The fact that idea x is a subjectively GOOD thing makes no difference as it could just as easily be a BAD thing that’s being forced upon us tomorrow.
I would be concerned for the culture shock. Maybe you ought to move to Kansas for a couple of years, then to Iowa. Take it by stages, you know?
You still haven’t even attempted to read the decision, have you? If you did, you would get an answer to this question. Your behavior in this thread is simply outrageous. You refuse to be educated about a topic you know nothing about, yet you act as if your opinion is valid on the topic.
Because in 1857 homosexuality was considered a psychiatric condition which required institutionalization. There’s a whole array of facts on the ground now which show that homosexuality is not a disordered condition, that homosexuals can lead productive and normal lives, and that sexual orientation is probably set before birth. Why shouldn’t the court take note of this change?
Then they should have clarified it. They could have easily put in a list of classes which the equal protection clause applied to, but they didn’t. Why should we assume, that in the absence of a list of classes, that the equal protection clause was only supposed to apply to the classes which you’ve aribitrarily chosen?
In 1857, I’m sure plenty of people thought that a deaf person or a blind person couldn’t be a lawyer. Under your proposed analysis, a law prohibiting a deaf or a blind person from being a lawyer would be perfectly acceptable. Your analysis is the only thing that is silly in this thread.
No, your only point is to try and shove your morality down upon the rest of us. Your behavior in this thread is nothing short of immoral. You refuse to even read a court decision, but you have no problem lecturing other people about what the law should be. Shame on you, and I hope that one day you might be able to treat people with respect and compassion, rather than holding your chosen ignorance out as a standard that other people should adhere to.
Because they were studiously ignoring that fact. Happens all the time.
jtgain, are you also against Brown v. Board? Miranda rights? One person one vote? The right to peacefully protest in public spaces? The right to defense counsel if you can’t afford one? The inability of the police to use unlawfully obtained evidence against you?
How about bans on interracial marriage–you cool with those?
All of those rights were recognized by the Supreme Court hundreds of years after the relevant constitutional provisions were enacted, all in contravention of long-standing law or practice.
I think you need to refine your argument a bit.
You know what, jtgain? Why don’t you state, right now, what the list of classes are that Iowa’s equal protection clause is supposed to apply to. Make sure to think about it. Give me a complete list of what classes are protected under your “original intent of the framers” analysis.
I believe his argument is that if we allow gays to marry, the next thing that will happen is that “traditional people” will have animal sex forced upon them, or something like that. Assuming that I, as a liberal atheist, am not one of those “traditional people”, I’m not terribly concerned, but when the rest of us force them into animal sex, do we get to pick the animals?
You are probably right that the idea of legal gay marriage did not occur to the framers of Iowa’s Constitution. But I wouldn’t make such a quick leap to assume that they would have been appalled and clarified the document. Slavery in Iowa was abolished 37 years before the end of the Civil War. Interracial Marriage was legalized something like 120 years before the U.S. got around to doing the same. There are several such examples. Iowa has a LONG history of being at the edge of civil rights victories.
You’re absolutely right. As far as you go. You ignore the subtler undertone. It makes Iowa a better place to live. How many people have your heard utter the words of late “I’m proud of Iowa.” or “I’m proud to be an Iowan”? I’ve been hearing it a LOT lately – enough to make it clear that I haven’t heard it much until now.
I happen to think that government can, and does, legislate the tone of the social environment – rightly or wrongly, intentionally or not. I also happen to believe, that if those in government would recognize this, and focus some attention on the types of lives that their constituents wanted to have, that the drugury of government could at least be put to some higher causes.
Well, here we are again. I’m going to address your last point first, because it shows most clearly what you simply don’t understand about this case. I’m going to walk you through it, but you could understand it yourself if you just read the opinion carefully–rather than whatever sources you’ve relied upon to understand what it says.
This decision doesn’t hold that equal rights to marriage exist. This is because it doesn’t rest on the theory that there is a fundamental right to marriage.
It rests on equal protection. To put the decision very simply, the court held that: “if the state is in the business of marriage, it cannot restrict it to opposite-sex relationships.”
It would have been an equally valid decision to overturn the entire marriage statute–but the court [rightly] concluded that that would be inconsistent with the intent of the Iowa legislature–which intended to have a thing called “marriage.” And then, given that conclusion, it concluded that the law should be read to include same-sex marriages.
Back to your first point. Here it is as you phrased it:
Interesting point. I can’t quite see where it shows that the court’s ruling was wrong–at best, it shows how it was late. So your “point” at best is answered by me saying “better late than never.”
But it’s not that late. A glance at the opinion would have shown you that this was a case to invalidate a law passed in 1998.
So we’re now only eleven years behind. This is a state supreme court decision–so it was appealing a lower court decision. The lawsuit itself started in 2005. So that’s only seven years ‘late.’ That’s pretty good for a court–the U.S. supreme court just decided an appeal regarding the Exxon Valdez disaster–now that’s ‘late’.
Further, If you had read the opinion, you’d see that the court addresses your “point”–it says that:
.
In other words, the court doesn’t care what the history was. It doesn’t care how long the law has existed, or how long marriage has been so defined–when a case is brought before it, it has to decide whether the law in question violates the Iowa constitution’s equal protection clause. That’s what it did, and what it should do.
Again, did it interpret the Iowa constitution incorrectly? Did it interpret the law incorrectly? Please cite to specific errors in the opinion, which can be found here: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/assets/pdf/D213209243.PDF
Furthermore, most courts can’t just “address” an issue out of the blue. They have to be presented with a case before the issue can be decided. It would be ‘activist’ [whatever that means] for them to go out and decide an issue before it’s brought in a case, and you wouldn’t want that.
The Iowa supreme court implies as much:
(emphasis added)
Herbert Hoover, as you probably know, was neither a judge nor gay. So he had no reason to sue, and he had no reason to go out and determine the law of Iowa. That’d be “activist.”
Yes it is, but not for the reason you think it is.
And here again, you ignore my point. you need to interpret something that is unclear. There is no need to “clarify” the Iowa constitution–its meaning is plain and straightforward. A non-‘activist’ court shouldn’t ask what the framers’ intent was–their intent isn’t the law. The thing they all voted for, that became Art. I. Sec. 6 of the Iowa constitution, that is the law. Did the court misinterpret it?
This is just the same as if you get a speeding ticket, and then argue the “purpose” of the 55-mph limit was to save fuel [as it was: National Maximum Speed Law - Wikipedia ], and your car is waaaay more economical than the cars in 1974 [as it is]. The court won’t care. Why not?
Because the law says “It is illegal to drive on a public highway at more than 55 miles per hour”. That is clear, and doesn’t turn on the intent behind the law. Whatever the purpose for the law was is irrelevant when it sets out a clear rule that needs no interpretation (as is true of the Iowa constitution).
One could also reasonably argue that the Iowan framers did intend this result–by purposefully creating a clear and straightforward equal protection clause–because they believed the principle of equal protection should apply to all acts of the Iowa Legislature.
If we are going to argue intent, it’s a lot better of an argument to take my side, and to say “The Iowa constitution is clear–as it was intended to be”, rather than saying “By sheer accident, the Iowan framers wrote a clear and straightforward constitution when they intended it to be a lot more complicated and give far fewer rights… what idiots they were!”
Which I find particularly disturbing, truth be told. Why does it take the act of the SC before people can be proud of the state of Iowa? If you (Bruce) are a resident, you know that other than family, or local ties, there is little here that cannot be found somewhere else. What has changed in the heart and mind of your average Iowan today as compared to last Thursday? I assert that nothing has changed. For people to be “proud of their state” now, based only upon a court ruling and NOT based upon a perceived change of the Iowa citizenry, is premature at best.
Finally, gain, because for a governor or court to have decided one fine October morning in 1917, “well, I think I’ll go legalize gay marriages today” would be the exact same sort of judicial activism that your puirport to decry. A court renders a decision on constitutional law when a true case or controversy is validly brought before it by the contesting parties and one of them raises a constitutional claim.
Nowhere in Iowa’s constitution, I can confidently state without having referenced it, does it award the authority to the legislature to prohibit the harvesting and culturing for experimentation of embryonic human stem cells. So either that is legal in Iowa already – because citizens of the United States have the freedom to do anything that is not prohibited by law; it’s called “liberty” and people in the past risked and gave their lives to defend it – or one must infer from some statutory or constitutional provision’s wording that it may validly be prohibited. And we won’t have the answer to that until someone brings the case in a lawsuit, the court accepts the suit, it gets appealed up to SCOSOI and they rule definitively on it. Or else if the state legislature comes up with a statute specifically regarding it, and the courts decline to hear challenges to its constitutionality.
And now I get to return the compliment–this is a wonderful explanation of a very important point–one that goes to the heart of what jtgain doesn’t get.
I don’t know about the massive influx, nor do I know anything about the inclinations of East and West coasters. However, as a lesbian couple already living in the Midwest, this ruling very well may influence us to move to Iowa.
Why?
[ol]
[li]We, like more and more gay and lesbian couples these days, have a child[/li][li]We are a family unit that could definitely benefit from additional legal protections that marriage would offer[/li][li]We already enjoy the pace and affordability of the Midwest[/li][li]We already love the Decorah area, for various reasons, but never had a strong enough motive to pick up stakes and move there – until now[/li][/ol]
I can’t imagine we would be the only gay couples who live in some of the… less “cutting edge” (let’s put it that way) states in the US interior that would be fine with moving to a place like Iowa, given this ruling.
Consider my ignorance fought, thank you. Other than looking out for equality of all citizens here, I can’t say that I have a dog in this fight. It will be interesting to see the outcome of this decision ten year from now. I presume, that even with this ruling in place that it will be difficult for a homosexual couple to thrive in small town Iowa. As I mentioned earlier, the people haven’t changed overnight simply because of one ruling.