so should we talk about gay marriage in Iowa
 

I mean I don't know if other people want to but it seems like there should be a thread.

Gay marriage in Iowa.

is there anything worth talking about. Didnt they just decide it couldnt be banned.

Yeah what's there to talk about? Iowa is more forward thinking than California. There you go.

Anyway the dominos are falling. Aren't VT and NH supposed to legalize gay marriage soon as well?

I doubt that highly. It's not like the people of Iowa voted to lift the ban. We can praise the people of Iowa for their forward thinking if they don't pass the inevitable constitutional amendment that'll pop up in reaction to this.

It doesn't do any good to knock down dominoes if all it does is make people set them back up and fix them in cement so they're harder to knock down next time.

I think the only issue in Vermont was their Republican governor, but it's still looking good there. At least civil unions for now.

I would be happier if the government didn't recognize any form of marriage at all.

Think about it.. gay or straight.. why the hell should you have to go to town hall and get a "license".. get the governments PERMISSION to commit yourselves to each other?

Just let people be together for whatever religious/social reasons they want and don't give anybody a better rate on their taxes because of it.

it just passed the house in illinois too i think

so this way the government can charge you, duh. the local governments make a lot of coin off of marriage

did i mention i hate the government?

we gathered

yet another dumb comment from future boy

this is a court case that overturned the law banning gay marriage so it sets up legal precedent and might perhaps result in more legal cases against gay marriage bans, and perhaps leading to a supreme court decision.

Despite my personal feelings on the issue, I'm growing tired of judges legislating from the bench about these types of issues.

BUT IT HASNT HAPPENED YET. Its notable, thats fan-fucking-tastic. Whats there to talk about? Its going to lead to a bunch of stupid drama between now and then.

Did you add anything noteworthy to this? Thats some no-brainer shit. Wow, one decision might lead to some other decisions and then possibly, wait for it, the Supreme Court! No way Trots, really!? We're so fortunate to have such an astounding legal mind around to break this stuff down.

in order to pass an amendment there needs to be two consecutive sessions of congress to approve it and then it goes to public vote. this would delay a public referendum on the issue until 2012. which means, of course, it's a rallying issue for the evangelicals just in time for the presidential election.

but the current democrat-led iowa congress will not let it come up to a vote, so doesn't that delay it until at least 2014. by then i have to imagine this whole argument will be for the most part, over.

My guess is that this will be a highly unpopular decision with most of the constituents in a state like Iowa. Regardless of the party in power if they ignore the pulse of the public they're out, so they can't afford to do so.

Plus this just rallied a group that had been relatively asleep for a while now in the evangelicals.

Uh, oh. :eek: The evangelicals are rallied!

http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/...angelicals.jpg

lets see a detailed analysis on how this is "legislating from the bench."

let's see. a poll of iowans taken in october on the gay marriage issue broke down like this: 28% support gay marriage, 30% support civil unions, 32% are against both (10% don't know/refuse to answer). it seems like at least having unions is a fairly popular in the state.

a question from poll on whether they would accept a ruling by the supreme court in favor of gay marriage found 35% would accept the ruling (compare that to the only 28% that claim to support it in the poll, interesting). 27% would want to amend the constitution to ban gay marriage but allow unions, and 29% would want to ban all same-sex unions.

as for whether the legislature will bring it up.... it seems like the state senate majority leader is committed to avoiding it at least for the rest of this year and probably the session.

do you think that Lawrence v. Texas, Loving v. Virginia, Brown v. Board of Education were bad decisions? "legislating from the bench" and all.

what does that phrase even mean

:confused:

Whoa, someone knows how to push your buttons.

Legislating from the bench? You know, strict constructionism vs. loose constructionism.

Judicial activism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anyone posting useless info telling me that would get the same reply. Just happened to be Trots again.

The most informative posts have been Ryan Patricks. No one else in here has said much of anything.

Awww, you mad?

yeah but this case has nothing to do with it

the court ruled that it gay marriage bans were discrimination and was in contradiction of the anti-discrimination laws of the state

there's nothing about "legislating from the bench." Which to me is a useless phrase because it generally only includes any decision that goes in a liberal rather than conservative way. It's a political buzz phrase that has lost all meaning.

Not exactly. It's not as simple as "this is discrimination, and that's illegal." There was no "anti-discrimination law" for them to point to. They had to do some judicial acrobatics to try to say the equal protection clause of their constitution prohibits the ban. It wasn't cut and dried.

It only seems that way because conservatives can usually get their way by legislating from the legislature. Please, tell me just what court decisions that went in a conservative way should be in the "legislating from the bench" category?

Conservatives don't want change, so obviously bench legislation is a liberal thing. Something so stupidly obvious really shouldn't have to be pointed out.

Back in the 70s activist judges were a good thing. You wanted them then.

Now it absolutely means any judge who doesn't realize American law has to be a living thing to survive in modern times must be a socialist.