Iowa Supreme Court strikes ban on same sex marriage

Take the victories you can. When the world doesn't collapse, and marriage is not "reduced" or changed in any way by allowing homosexuals to marry, public opinion will follow after.Remember, the courts had to handle interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia, too.On another positive-ish note, Vermont's legislature is close to passing a bill authorizing marriage certificates for homosexual couples. Unfortunately, it looks like their governor may veto, and while the majority is strong, it's not strong enough to beat a veto. We'll have to see.Still, that opinion is awesome. Take the time to read it - it does an excellent job of putting to shame nearly every anti-gay-marriage argument out there.Now if only we in California could get our heads on straight again...Oh...and Iowa doesn't have a residency requirement for marriages. Once this takes effect, gay couples can take a weekend trip to get legally married.

California;s referendum was for an actual constitutional amendment, which is the only way to beat a Supreme Court ruling that a given law is unconstitutional. California's amendment process is ridiculously easy, requiring only a simple majority vote - it's literally easier to pass a constitutional amendment here by referendum than it is for the legislature to pass a yearly state budget, I shit you not. *Iowa's amendment process is more than a little more complicated. They need to pass a proposed amendment through the legislature...and then wait two years and pass it through the next sitting legislature (somewhat like how Congress can only give the next sitting Congress a pay raise). After it has been passed by two consecutive legislatures, it then requires a majority vote from the citizenry (like the entirety of California's process).This means that at minimum we're looking at two years of gay marriage in Iowa. That's a long time for people to "get used to it," and for public opinion to realize that the sky has not fallen. It also allows a lot of time for gays to get married (even from out of state), paving the way for federal challenges to DOMA (though I shudder at the thought of the current Supreme Court getting to rule on gay marriage), and making a lot of people personally invested in keeping gay marriage legal.It looks like in Iowa, it may actually be more difficult to put the cat back in the bag.* - This is the standard methodology for "normal" constitutional amendments in California. Amendments that modify existing portions of the constitution (like repealing a previous amendment) requires a 60% majority vote by the legislature before it can reach the people during a special election. Prop (h)8 didn't follow this process, and some are arguing to the California Supreme Court that, because (h)8 took away a right that the Supreme Court had previously rules was granted by the Constitution, the current results must be stricken, Prop (h)8 must be repealed, and the process needs to start over again correctly with a vote in the legislature (which would not likely pass). The Supreme Court is in the process of ruling on the legality of Prop (h)8, but it doesn't look good so far.Passing a state budget in California requires a 2/3 majority in the legislature to pass. For some reason, this state believes that constitutional amendments should require a simply majority, and a yearly budget requires 2/3 of the legislature. Don't try to understand it, you'll get a headache.

I'm telling you to take solace in the fact that progress is being made. It can't possibly be fast enough, because the situation shouldn't exist in teh first place. But it takes time to fight bigotry, and this is a victory even if it's not the way you'd prefer to see it.Further, Iowa was one of those states banning gay marriage until now. The bigots are slipping. That's a good thing, no matter how you slice it. Bigotry isn't limited to any race. It's sad, it's hypocritical, it's infuriating, and it's wrong, but the point remains - the supreme court (both at the state and federal level) exists to protect the constitutional rights of the minority from a bigoted majority. Don't be too terribly upset when bigoted laws are struck down by the governmental branch tasked with doing exactly that. This is true, but it's still good to see that people like supreme court judges (in Iowa!) get it. Again, it will be 2 years at absolute minimum before Iowa can pass a constitutional amendment a la Prop (h)8. That's a long delay, and that works to our advantage. They can't use the argument that "we're not taking away a right, we're just defining marriage," because they'll be taking away a right that gays have had for two years. The amendment will need to go through a lot more red tape to be passed than Prop (h)8 did (and the California legislature would never have passed the thing, either). Two years will remove the sense of urgency the bigots exploited with Prop (h)8. The bigots aren't going to go away, but I think our chances are better in Iowa. I think there's cause to be optimistic.

That's pretty nasty. You might have to wait for a federal challenge to anti-gay-marriage laws to get that one off of the books.Fortunately, the more states issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples, the more people have grounds to challenge DOMA on a federal level (as I recall, DOMA states that the feds don't recognize homosexual marriages, and also that states don't have to recognize gay marriage licenses issued by other states a blatant violation of the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution).Once DOMA is overturned, all states will be forced to recognize marriage licenses issued in other states - including licenses issued to gay couples. At that point many state constitutional amendments (like Prop (h)8) would be invalidated because they would violate the Federal Constitution. Even if the amendment is worded so that marriage licenses simply cannot be issued (as opposed to defining what marriages are recognized), they'll effectively have been castrated, and should be relatively easy to repeal (and in the meantime, a quick trip to a non-bigoted state can resolve the issue).If only the US Supreme Court had fewer Bush appointees at the moment...

DOMA says:

quote:

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1. No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) needs to treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.
2. The Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states.
  —"DOMA says:"

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The Constitution says:

quote:

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Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.
  —"the Constitution says:"

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The Constitution clearly states that public acts and records (like the issuance of marriage certificates) issued in one state must be given full faith and credit in all other states.DOMA clearly states that no faith or credit is required to be given to any homosexual marriage, even though full faith and credit are given to other marriages across state lines.The Full Faith and Credit clause is the reason a marriage in California is still valid if you move to Connecticut. DOMA clearly violates that for homosexual marriages. Or am I missing something? The current Supreme Court is stacked with conservatives who are more likely to support DOMA. Congress' views at this point are irrelevant, unless we can convince them to simply repeal DOMA (a possibility, but not very likely).