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MARRIAGE EQUALITY IN IOWA.
When I was growing up in Iowa, the state's marketing slogan was "Iowa, you make me smile." As disgruntled high schoolers, my friends and I would use the phrase sarcastically... But today, it's totally appropriate. Because this morning the Iowa Supreme Court ruled to allow same-sex couples to marry.
For 10 years, Iowa has had a law on the books defining marriage as "between a man and a woman," and the court unanimously ruled that that statute violates the equal protection clause of the state constitution. The Supreme Court decision comes after conservatives appealed a district court ruling in favor of gay marriage in 2007, the same year the state legislature passed a law banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Richard Socarides, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton on gay civil rights, said today’s decision could set the stage for other states. Socarides was was a senior political assistant for Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin in the early 1990s.
“I think it’s significant because Iowa is considered a Midwest sate in the mainstream of American thought,” Socarides said. “Unlike states on the coasts, there’s nothing more American than Iowa. As they say during the presidential caucuses, 'As Iowa goes, so goes the nation.’”
This is exactly what the right wing is afraid of. I'm tentatively betting on a bigger national anti-gay uproar in response to the Iowa decision than there was after California or Massachusetts. After all, it's a bit more difficult for conservatives to spin this as a crazy decision by "activist judges" in an outlier, coastal, liberal state. Unsurprisingly, the lobbying for an anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution has already begun. Today, though, it's nice to be from Iowa.
--Ann Friedman
COMMENTS (7)
Regardless of how you feel about this, we should all be scared when a few unelected judges can overturn the legislature. We are a Representative Republic. The legislature represents the will of the people. The legislature should have been the one to reverse the ten year old law. Not a court.
Posted by: n8whit | April 3, 2009 11:01 AM
The Socarides quote is breathtakingly inane. Iowa is considered in the mainstream of American thought? By who? Unlike states on the coasts, there's nothing more American than Iowa? WTF?
Posted by: applecor | April 3, 2009 11:33 AM
Somewhere, gay marriage opponents are singing:
Oh, we've got trouble
Right here in River City
With a capital T, and that rhymes with G
And that stands for Gay!
Posted by: ajw_93 | April 3, 2009 12:07 PM
n8whit,
You are absolutely right. And when state legislatures prohibited the use of contraception and miscegenation, and passed all sorts of laws that discriminated against women, the courts certainly had no right to reverse any of them. We are a Representative Republic [sic] and, as such, we really shouldn't even have the Bill of Rights at all. Yeah, absolute majoritarianism is definitely the way to go; never in world history have we had any sort of tyranny of the majority. If you exclude the Greek, Roman, Achaemenid, Sassanid, Han, Egyptian, Akkadian, Neo-Babylnian, Mongol, Inca, British, Russian, Spanish, French, and Nazi Empires, that is.
Posted by: Danny | April 3, 2009 12:16 PM
N8whit:
What I think Danny's getting at, through all the sarcasm, is that, yes, we are a "representative republic," but Iowa has a constitution, and the constitution (like the US Constitution) limits the powers of the government, and it is the legitimate role of the Iowa Supreme Court to strike down Iowa laws that go outside of the limits the Iowa Constitution places on the Iowa legislature.
You will hear (and maybe participate in) whining about "activist judges" on the Iowa Supreme Court. Make no mistake, this is not judicial activism. This is a Supreme Court doing what Supreme Courts do: making sure the laws are in line with the constitution.
Posted by: Linus | April 3, 2009 12:27 PM
few unelected judges
Uh, you might want to look into how Iowa's judicial retention system works...
Posted by: Scott Lemieux | April 3, 2009 3:47 PM
You might want to look in to whether Iowa has the right of referendum by the people, so that the Iowa constitution can be modified, as they did in California
Posted by: isaldur | April 4, 2009 1:33 AM