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Loading ...Gay marriage goes before Iowa Supreme Court
12.08.2008 8:52am EST
(Des Moines, Iowa) The Iowa Supreme Court this week will hear arguments in a case challenging the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.
Both sides on the marriage issue will be given 30 minutes on Tuesday to make their arguments. It is the first state Supreme Court to hear a same-sex marriage case since California voters last month overturned a high court ruling that struck down that state’s ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional.The Iowa case centers around a state appeal of a ruling by a Polk County judge that struck down a state law limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples.
Six same-sex Iowa couples went to court in 2005 after the Polk County recorder denied them marriage licenses.
Last year County Judge Robert Hanson ruled that the law violated the constitutional rights of due process and equal protection.
Less than two hours after the the ruling, two Des Moines men applied for a marriage license, found a judge to waive the waiting period, and were married.
Hanson then stayed his ruling until the state could appeal it to the Iowa Supreme Court. The marriage of Sean Fritz and Tim McQuillan remains the only legal same-sex marriage in the state.
Lambda Legal, which represents the six couples said it is cautiously optimistic the Supreme Court will uphold Hanson’s ruling. Lambda attorney Camilla Taylor noted that the Iowa court traditionally has led the nation on civil rights issues, pointing out that the Iowa justices struck down a ban on interracial marriage more than a century before the U.S. Supreme Court declared such laws unconstitutional.
“This is not even a close constitutional call,” Taylor told The Des Moines Register. “If you examine the law in other states, the case law in Iowa is at least as strong, if not stronger. The Iowa Supreme Court has made it clear from its inception that the law includes broader guarantees of equality than federal law.
In a separate case, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in January that co-adoptions by same-sex parents were legal.
The case involved a lesbian couple who had split up. While they were together, one partner had adopted as a co-parent the children of her partner. When the relationship ended, the birth mother asked a court if the other woman had visitation rights and could be compelled to pay child support.
A lower court ruled that co-adoptions by same-sex couples were illegal and threw out the case. The Supreme Court disagreed and ordered the lower court to revisit the case.
The issue of gay marriage has prompted Republicans and socially conservative groups to press for an amendment to the state constitution to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples.
Democrats who control the legislature have thwarted GOP demands they take up the proposed amendment. House Speaker Pat Murphy (D) has said he is in no rush to bring in legislation.
To amend the Iowa Constitution, simple majorities are needed in both the House and Senate in two consecutive general assemblies and then it must be approved by a simple majority of voters in the following general election.
Polls show that most Iowans would support civil unions, but not marriage, for same-sex couples.
Who cares what the public wants in the voting issue of same sex marriage in Iowa?
Why should it be left up to the destructive majority to deny a minority a simple civil right of protection and happiness. Is this truly what the Founding Fathers of America envisioned?
Shame on all of the people/states that DECIDED their gay neighbors, friends, co workers, relatives or stranger walking down the street CANT HAVE something as binding as the guarantee to be happy with the one they love as that of their hetro equal… SHAME ON YOU!
Sanctity of marriage??? What does that truly mean? How many hetero “sanctities of marriage” are thrown away daily!
Keep a smile on your face and love in your heart!
“Polls show that most Iowans would support civil unions, but not marriage, for same-sex couples.”
I am so sick of hearing this. Not only does it fall under the “separate but equal” category, but those statements are just mere semantics. Further, they demonstrate the lack of separation between church and state.
Either people need to realize the difference between “civil” and “religious” marriages, or we need to get rid of civil marriages and have civil unions for everyone.
Aside from this… hope things go well in Iowa!
I wonder how many strait men that have cheated on their wives have voted against gay marriage ? It is a civil right people… I also hope it goes well in Iowa and then again in Ca in March.
Tom in Long Beach
It is unfortunate that our fellow coutrymen and women do not see as as equal. Hopefully the courts in Iowa and California will do what is right and just. We need to stop having our rights put on a ballot for others to vote on. Something that doesn’t seem right. I have hope for all the gays in Iowa that your day will come and you can marry the one that you love. Lets keep hoping and fighting for this.
Yeah, we’ll see what luck we have here. Somehow I’m not counting on it.
I just mean that New York decided against it, among others. But we’ll see. If Iowa decides it soon (before any other state) and decides not to recognize same-sex marriage, it would be the first state to rule in such a way following Calilfornia’s Supreme Court ruling. I mean we know Connecticut ruled after CA and ruled for it. So it will be interesting to see if CA has any weight behind it (and see how the Iowa constitution & the laws of the state affect the ruling- with how they’re different that CA constitution and laws).
SO I’ve lived in the midwest my whole life (Michigan), and I just don’t see the hope of another midwest state granting this. Prop 8 has turned this realistic optimist into quite a cynic. I hope I’m wrong.
When will America wake up and remember the basic concepts that this country was founded on? As Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote, “the very purpose of the Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities … One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote.”
As GVC reminds us: As Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote, “the very purpose of the Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities … One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote.”
….and This is from THOMAS JEFFERSONS lst Inaugural Speech…may we hear the same from PE Obama.
“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.”
SEPARATE RELIGIOUS MARRIAGE FROM STATE MARRIAGE. ALL MARRIAGES SHOULD BE RECOGNIZED BY GOVT. THE RELIGIOUS CULTS CAN DO AS THEIR BELIEFS.
HUMAN RIGHTS EQUALITY IS AN AMERICAN VALUE
Will,
New York does however recognize gay marriages from outside New York. Just a matter of time.
Gay- marriage states Massachusetts and Connecticut border on New York State to the east and gay-marriage country Canada borders on New York State to the north and New Jersey bordering to the south of NY is very likely to turn civil unions into gay marriage as NJ civil unions are not working. NJ couples have to explain their civil unions again and again to employers and to insurance companies and to doctors, so civil unions are not working in NJ and the NJ government is hearing all this and gay marriage will likely to arrive in KJ within months.
It is prodicted that the rest of New England will have gay marriage by 2012, and chances are so will New Jersey and New York before then with NJ first OKing it and then NY will follow soon after.
NY should become the first state to legislate marriage equality but the Dems are selling us out. See:
http://quasisuspectclass.wordpress.com/
Quasi,
We already knew that about the Dem sell out in New York State from a previous 365gay.com article about that subject
That was no longer news to us.
t’s up to Empire State gay rights group to hold the legislators’ feet to the fire and to back up Daniel O’Donnell who is insisting that the Dems keep their gay marriage promises and to act on those promises saying that people gave to these Dem campaign on hearing the gay marriage promises and that people have a right to see those promises kept.
And the more states that border on New York with gay marriage laws, already MA and CT, to be likely followed by NJ and with a gay marriage bill being likely submitted in neighboring Vermont (VT). If VT gets gay marriage, and with Canada’s border on NY’s northern edge, all that will left without gay marriage nearby will be PA, (Pennsylvania).
NY now recognize gay marriages from outside of NY State and I feel it is inevitable that one day NY State will have gay marriage just like its New England neighbors.
Duane,
Ij my state, Equality Maryland is calling for the term marriage to be changed to civil marriages.
And since I am a gay Rpiscopalian, I do not refer to the practice of faith as a cult. To me faith is a personal and everyday matter, not a cult.
Morgan, Faith is indeed a completely personal matter. However, many groups of people here in the US follow leaders who tell them how to think and how to live and who to hate..and ask for them to give $$ to support the leaders hate.
Those are CULTS no matter what they call themselves.
GayVotesCount wrote:
—When will America wake up and remember the basic concepts that this country was founded on? As Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote, “the very purpose of the Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities … One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote.”—
I concur, but this is the religious right we’re talking about here. These brainwashed zombies, while boldly claiming to believe in and uphold “God’s Law,” completely write off the existence of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS-(widely rumored to represent God’s TRUE word)-choosing, instead, to embrace a book-(the bible)-with “laws” written by men thousands of years dead in their graves. Funny how man can somehow cook up all these alleged, unfounded sins concerning homosexuality…and yet we have the TEN COMMANDMENTS, mandates that these very same people have fought and scratched to ban from public display at courthouses and libraries! I’ve meticulously studied all ten of these commandments, and NONE of them mention ANYTHING about gay people. These self-righteous heathens go out of their way to impose their steadfast religious bigotry upon this entire society while, at the same time, daring to imply that it is the gay community who is on the attack!
Hypocrisy at its most pathetic!