If ever there is a time for a Constitutional Convention called by the States, it is now.
1. Sanctity of Marriage
2. Sanctity of Life
3. repeal of the 16th Amendment
4. Repeal of the 17th Amendment
5. Separation of the Federal State from Social programs by establishing a Board of Governors to administer as voluntary by each State.
R. George Dunn
Unanimous ruling: Iowa marriage no longer limited to one man, one woman
The Iowa Supreme Court this morning upheld a Polk County judge's 2007 ruling that marriage should not be limited to one man and one woman.
Third state to allow same-sex marriages
Today's decision makes Iowa the first Midwestern state, and the third in the country, to allow same-sex marriages. Lambda Legal, a gay rights group, financed the court battle and represented six couples who challenged Iowa's 10-year-old ban on gay marriage.
Supreme Court Justice Mark Cady, who wrote the unanimous decision, at one point invoked the court's first-ever decision, in 1839, which struck down slavery laws 17 years before the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of a slave owner to treat a person as property.
Iowa's gay marriage ban "is unconstitutional, because the county has been unable to identify a constitutionally adequate justification for excluding plaintiffs from the institution of civil marriage," Cady wrote in the 69-page opinion that seemed to dismiss the concept of civil unions as an option for gay couples.
"A new distinction based on sexual orientation would be equally suspect and difficult to square with the fundamental principles of equal protection embodied in our constitution," Cady wrote.
The ruling, however, also addressed what it called the "religious undercurrent propelling the same-sex marriage debate," and said judges must remain outside the fray.
Some Iowa religions are strongly opposed to same-sex marriages, the justices noted, while some support the notion.
"Our constitution does not permit any branch of government to resolve these types of religious debates and entrusts to courts the task of ensuring that government avoids them," the opinion says.
The ruling explicitly does not affect "the freedom of a religious organization to define marriage it solemnizes as unions between a man and a woman," the justices stressed.
Today's decision makes Iowa the first Midwestern state, and the third in the country, to allow same-sex marriages. Lambda Legal, a gay rights group, financed the court battle and represented six couples who challenged Iowa's 10-year-old ban on gay marriage.
Supreme Court Justice Mark Cady, who wrote the unanimous decision, at one point invoked the court's first-ever decision, in 1839, which struck down slavery laws 17 years before the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of a slave owner to treat a person as property.
Iowa's gay marriage ban "is unconstitutional, because the county has been unable to identify a constitutionally adequate justification for excluding plaintiffs from the institution of civil marriage," Cady wrote in the 69-page opinion that seemed to dismiss the concept of civil unions as an option for gay couples.
"A new distinction based on sexual orientation would be equally suspect and difficult to square with the fundamental principles of equal protection embodied in our constitution," Cady wrote.
The ruling, however, also addressed what it called the "religious undercurrent propelling the same-sex marriage debate," and said judges must remain outside the fray.
Some Iowa religions are strongly opposed to same-sex marriages, the justices noted, while some support the notion.
"Our constitution does not permit any branch of government to resolve these types of religious debates and entrusts to courts the task of ensuring that government avoids them," the opinion says.
The ruling explicitly does not affect "the freedom of a religious organization to define marriage it solemnizes as unions between a man and a woman," the justices stressed.
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