Word: iowa
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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April is shaping up to be a real watershed for the gay-marriage issue. First came the heartland win on April 3 from the Iowa Supreme Court. Then on Tuesday, Vermont's lawmakers defied Governor Jim Douglas with a veto override heard round the world, making their state the nation's first to establish gay marriage by a vote rather than by judicial decree. That same day in Washington, D.C., the city council chose to give legal recognition to gay and lesbian residents who have been married elsewhere...
...other ways, the Iowa decision was every bit a match for the California ruling. It took up each argument against gay marriage and dispatched them with a minimum of bombast. An exception was the vivid language employed by the court to cement its position that gays have indeed been discriminated against as a class - a traditional test for whether a group deserves the protection of heightened constitutional scrutiny. "The County does not, and could not in good faith, dispute the historical reality that gay and lesbian people as a group have long been the victim of purposeful and invidious discrimination...
...equal protection analysis, though it is rooted there. Instead, what sets this decision apart is the frank way in which it raises the issue of religious objections to gay marriage. As the Supreme Court did in Lawrence v. Texas, its seminal 2003 ruling striking down sodomy laws, the Iowa court says that mere moral opprobrium or deeply held values are not enough to warrant legal sanctions or the denial of legal rights. The court then subtly raises the issue of religious opposition to gay marriage, even though the legal briefs by the other side...
...Religious opponents to gay marriage were not convinced. "We, the Roman Catholic Bishops of Iowa, strongly disagree with the decision of the Iowa Supreme Court which strikes down Iowa's law defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman," the bishops said in a statement issued Friday. "This decision rejects the wisdom of thousands of years of human history. It implements a novel understanding of marriage, which will grievously harm families and children...
...spokesman for the conservative family group, said he's already begun lobbying for an amendment campaign to outlaw gay marriage again. "The first thing we did after internalizing the decision was to walk across the street and begin the process of lobbying our legislators to let the people of Iowa vote," he said...