Why Iowa won’t go backwards on marriage rights…
April 7th, 2009 | Author: Zille
Get a box of tissues to hand before you watch this…!
The Iowa Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling Friday finding that the state’s same-sex marriage ban violates the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian couples, making Iowa the third state where marriage will be legal.
In its decision, the court upheld a 2007 district court judge’s ruling that the law violates the state constitution. It strikes the language from Iowa code limiting marriage to only between a man a woman.
“The court reaffirmed that a statute inconsistent with the Iowa constitution must be declared void even though it may be supported by strong and deep-seated traditional beliefs and popular opinion,” said a summary of the ruling issued by the court.
The ruling set off celebration among the state’s gay-marriage proponents.
“Iowa is about justice, and that’s what happened here today,” said Laura Fefchak, who was hosting a verdict party in the Des Moines suburb of Urbandale with partner of 13 years, Nancy Robinson.
Yay! After the horrible disappointment in CA late last year (which, when I heard about it, felt like I was being kicked in the stomach) this victory really shines all the brighter … and hopefully will lead to similar change and growth!
A thought: Some of you do now know I was partnered with a woman for seven years. And some people who do know that don’t seem to think I have any reason to discuss gay rights, now that I’ve obviously “given up the good fight” so that I can have “heterosexual privilege.” But that point of view is just as narrow-minded as homophobia: the fact of the matter is, love isn’t about genitalia to me. My Master could have easily have been a woman as a man — the only thing that matters is that I love him for who he is, not what he’s packing under his kilt! (Heh heh — which means, come to think of it, that he wears skirt-like clothing rather more often than my female partner ever did!) Like Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal says in the video, all love benefits and supports all other kinds of love. There is really no difference between heterosexual and homosexual love — it’s just love, plain and simple. And he’s right, the opponents of that have already lost — we just have to make them wake up and smell it.
Anyway, this is a spanking blog, primarily, but I will always be delightedly pointing out the victories (of not just the gay/lesbian communities, but of love itself!) and also suffering along with them in defeat, regardless of the fact that I am happily married: as long as there are people who are denied the inalienable right to marry the person they love, my own marriage is the poorer for it.
Shadow Lane Video Clips
Northern Spanking
I Feel Myself.com
That’s one of the reasons I like my country – a civil union is available to everyone and is equal to “marriage” (good for same-sex couples and atheists like me who feel it’s disrespectful to get married when I don’t believe in God). In the same vein, prostitution is also legal, which can make things a lot safer for people in the sex industry!
Poppy — Are you an Aussie? I hadn’t realized!
Yes, the UK and Oz are waaaaaaaaaay ahead of the US on matters like gay marriage and prostitution (although in the case of the latter, it really ain’t sayin’ much!)
It still really amuses me that I had a proper “Church Wedding,” and it actually took a good deal of soul searching on my part, both before and after the service, because I really respect the Vicar of that church, and I wanted to make sure that the ceremony got full respect from me (who is now a Buddhist, but at one time considered herself a satanist!) I did try to find hymns that mentioned The Big Guy and His Son as little as possible, but the awesome Vicar didn’t mention the G-word once in the sermon (which was wonderful and made me cry.) I was *very lucky* to get to have the tradition and lovely language of the old service (“pledge thee my troth” and all that) while at the same time having the actual religious beliefs that usually go along with it really not get in the way!