The defense (against equality) requested a stay by the court from revalidating the gay marriage licenses, until an appeal can be heard. It is most likely reasonable that the stay will be put in place, and this case will probably make its way to the Supreme Court of Iowa.
A link to an article about the ruling:
And even though this is only for the licensing of Polk County, it is noted that any resident in the state can apply for a license from Polk County, providing a vehicle for all homosexual couples to marry in Iowa, as much as they were able to before the ban statute.
This is a civil right, not a right of the states to decide, and one day there will be federal law permitting gay marriage. Eventually, the federal legislature will be composed of people bold enough to draft and pass such a bill. But for now, victories like this must take the lead through court interpretation and bring equality to Americans one county at a time.
To justice!
of lower courts almost always finding the anti-equality laws to be unconstitutional. let us hope that the iowa supreme court has the integrity and clarity of the massachusetts supreme judicial court. as we all know, interesting non-legal excuses have been used by supremes in other states (new york and washington come first to mind) for keeping marriage a special right for heterosexuals.
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on another note, i can only guess how fast the Myth Romney campaign will jump on this. as i understand it, he’s been practicing his newly-acquired hayseed vocab* on the natives.
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*varmint
hog futures
imachristiantoo
hog futures
corn’s a tasslin’!
hog futures
senator who?
hog futures
gosh darnitall!
hog futures
buy one Gitmo, get the second free!
hog futures
lime jello marshmallow sour cream surprise
corn is up!
Well, it’s been a good day! Thank you GLAD for your ongoing excellent work! Decision here. GLAD press release here.
for the MA Lege to strike the law banning out of staters from coming to MA to get married. After all, I’d hate to lose out on the mighty gay tourism dollar to Iowa of all places.
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[of course, the fact that the law is crap for philosophical reasons is obvious, but sometimes the mighty ________ dollar is the motivation some folks need]
storm of cash, that is. i agree with you completely and have been beating this drum for years. why the related industries in MA aren’t piping up i don’t understand. there’s money to be made, people! are we for growing business in MA or not?
Some of those Saudi weddings would generate huge bucks, and each prince can have four of them!
We should run some ads on Iowa TV stations.
since Iowans were only allowed to marry for 4 hrs. the ruling has been stayed as Polk County appeals the decision.
I should not that, although this is very good news, we’ve been to this stage before in other states and haven’t quite made it all the way. In one state (Hawaii) we actually got as far as the supreme court ruling gay marriage legal, and lost it to a constitutional amendment (the same thing we successfully fought off here in MA). Iowa is not yet ahead of some other states where courts have made similar rulings, but been overturned or watered down at higher levels, or cancelled by legislative action.
That is a good point – we should watch what the Iowa legislature does in response, such as attempt to amend their state constitution.
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This was a little heartening on that notion:
http://www.woi-tv.co…
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It’s up to Iowa to tip the scales in at least one of their legislative branches – it looks like the Senate…
I am personally skeptical that the Iowa Supreme Court is going to outflank the Supreme Court of Washington and the Court of Appeals of New York on the left. The social conservatism that Slick Dancing Mitt has fed on to build his lead in the Iowa Republican polls is too potent to allow a textbook example of what right-wingers consider “judicial acitvism” to stand. As yesterday’s proceedings in Nairobi reflect, homophobia has the upper hand in most of the world, and in most of America. We in Massachusetts live in a bubble which sometimes blinds us to the reality of how things are elsewhere (and often here as well.)
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The price of freedom is eternal vigilance–only that truth can save the homosexual from the perdition which the African Anglicans and the Iowa Republicans both wish for us.
since you mention the international landscape, i thought i would drop a few links here. here is the globe article you refer to about the doings of american “defector” episcopalians in nairobi.
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and here is a link to the BBC show called The Changing World. They just did 2 stories about being gay, one on Jamaica and one on South Africa. Sad stories both.
But here’s another BBC article on an anti-gay rally in Uganda.
well, might as well pile on all we got. here’s a wiki world map showing the spectrum, from gay being illegal to gays being full and legally protected citizens.
Worth checking this map before deciding where to spend one’s g/l tourist dollars.
the tourist boards and newspapers of the places you rule out so that they know that they are losing your dollars.
Here’s an ad from the Israeli government’s board of tourism, which pretty overtly touts gay-friendliness as one of the reasons why you’d want to go to Tel Aviv for fun.
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i can’t listen to the sound right now, but the pictures are very clear. it’s great they have such a gay-positive ad out. israel has some very forward-thinking policies, yet some of the most knuckle-dragging citizenry. they seem very like the u.s. to me in this regard.
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i had to roll my eyes at how male-centric this ad is. i guess they don’t think lesbians travel to israel, or don’t spend money when they do. typical. anyway, any gay-positive ad is of benefit to us all.
According to Des Moines news channel 8, one couple joined about 19 others in managing to get married during the 4-hr window between the decision being made and the stay being placed.
This is interesting. Although the article is unclear, it looks as though this marriage will be recorded. I think something similar happened way back in the 1970s, when a s-s marriage was recorded in IL (?) before the right hand of the gov’t knew what the left hand was doing. The marriage was allowed to stand, although no others were allowed going forward.
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As an aside, this article makes a common mistake by stating that
In actuality, NJ and VT have Civil Unions. WA and DC have DPs which, in the case of WA, are extremely limited in scope. OR has passed comprehensive DPs, but the law has not gone into effect because it is being challenged by a repeal petition. They failed to list other states that have other contraptions.
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One might call all of these sub-marriage contraptions “civil unions”, in the sense that marriage too is a civil union. However, the only civil union most people (think they) know anything about are VT-style Civil Unions. I think that this fine example of sloppy journalism perfectly reflects the ignorance of heteroamericans on this issue. It also demonstrates why we need to jettison the bewildering array of not-marriages and replace them with the one universally recognized civil union, Civil Marriage.
when i wrote the comment above, it wasn’t clear whether Mr Fritz & Mr McQuillen were the only pair who managed to marry. Sadly, they were. This according to MassMarrier, who has a nice follow-up post up.
In Iowa, couples need to pay a $5 fee to waive the three-day waiting period to get a license.
All the other couples failed to pay the fee, so the licensing process was stopped. As these kids got theirs on the spot, they're set.
was Judge Hanson cited Lawrence v. Texas, which IIRC, Scalia said would be a precedent for allowing same sex marriage as a constitutional right.
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Of course, Scalia opposed Lawrence.
here are some early responses to the Polk County, IA judge’s ruling that civil equality should be restored to people in same-sex relationships.
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Well! There’s a fine CONGRATULATIONS, LADS! to the newlywed couple from the would-be defenders of the Constitution!
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Interesting. Just how many crooks and liars and cop impersonators has Myth hired? According to the story linked to above, Kris Mineau, father of the failed anti-equality amendment in MA, seems to be a major Myth operative
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Apparently Myth also is a huge believer in state rights when it comes to health care plans, but not when it comes to easing off from the homohating. BOOMERAAAANG!
That’s right, Myth. Gotta contain the love and mutual responsibility. Don’t let it spill onto neighboring states. Might reduce the gargantuan divorce rates, and we wouldn’t want that, now would we? But keep “it” up big fella. Maybe one old corn husker’ll believe you actually stand behind what you say…this time, that is.
McCain: “The ruling of the court only reinforces my belief that we must have a president who is committed to appointing strict constructionists bigots to the bench.”
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Giuliani: A spokesman said: “Rudy Giuliani believes marriage is between a man and a woman. He has a lot of experience there, with many different women, so we know we can trust him.”
Myth Romney said
Funny thing though that to Myth, marriage is a status, not a commitment. By having >1 wife, this means that McCain and Giuliani are of the highest status in Myth’s eyes. But not to fret Myth. You may only have one wife, but you do wear her well. Props to you for selecting a fine prop!
The Des Moines Register has a story up about Robert Hansen, the Polk County District Judge who made the ruling for equality. It seems he is a member of a local United Methodist Church, and is described by his bishop as an “active, devout layperson”. FYI, the church’s position on marriage is one-man, one-woman. Sayeth the bishop:
That last paragraph is pure beauty. A religious figure that both understands and is willing to articulate the knowledge that government officials have a duty first and foremost to the law! What a beacon of light that bishop is!
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My opinion is that Romney has no standing to point fingers and sling the perjorative “activist judge” when Judge Hansen’s own bishop can accept him as a good christian and methodist even when his civil rulings contradict church policies.