Let's have a rousing cheer for....

[pecunium]

The Supreme Court of Iowa, the judges of which stepped up to the plate and did their jobs.

“We are firmly convinced that the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective,” the court said in an opinion written by Justice Mark Cady. “The legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification.”

It wasn't even close. Unanimous. They knew they were going to be accused of, "activism", and bearded that lion too:


“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. This approach does not disrespect or denigrate the religious views of many Iowans who may strongly believe in marriage as a dual-gender union, but considers, as we must,only the constitutional rights of all people, as expressed by the promise of equal protection for all.”

Iowa, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.

I can only hope the Supremes in California manage to come to the same conclusion (the issues are a little different, but the core question is the same; what grounds are there, in the interest of the state, to disenfranchise one group just because another doesn't like them. The issue before the court is whether Prop. 8 was a minor revision, or a fundamental change. If the former, it stands. If the latter, it's null and void, and to bring it back up would require a constitutional convention, and larger than simple majority votes of the legislature, and the people).

Iowans are not likely to be able to pull a "Prop 8" on this one. Time isn't on the side of those who want to keep this system of separate, and unequal, going. For Iowans to reverse this takes two votes, in different sessions of the legislature, and a popular vote.

So it can't happen until 2012, at the soonest. That's three years of marriages. Three years of the world not ending. Three years of people going on with their lives, like the normal people they are.

The Court made a point of noting this doesn't require churches to do anything they don't want to (which is the way it is now. Freedom of religion doesn't mean a Catholic Priest has to marry a Mormon couple, or vice versa. If a church wants to solemnize a marriage, they can. If they don't, they don't have to. That lie was one of the big selling points the Prop. 8 people pushed)

I have faith the intervening years will be enough for people of open mind, and goodwill, to see that it's no skin off their noses.

The folks who raised the challenge were smart. As with the challenge to Prop. 8, here in Calif, this has no, immediate, federal question. The issue is done, as far as the courts are concerned.

Mind you that doesn't preclude a more limited federal question when some other state refuses to recognise a marriage celebrated
As is appropriate, I shall repeat myself, and others, when I quote:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Comments

I've been married

[dragonet2.livejournal.com]

to the guy I fell head over heels with in 1976 since 1978. But there is a third person that first I sent him into the path of and then we made a really compatible polyfamily (I was good friends with her before me and another friend kind of pushed him into her path to cheer her up...). As a triad we've been pretty steady since 1993 and we had a commitment ceremony at Conquest a couple of years ago. Site/time was chosen because it was the place with the most friends on one place and from far away,

It will be a bit rather longer to for the body politic to agree to polyfamilies. But I think our kind are actually common than the Mormon kind. And probably a lot safer for the females and children.

Re: I've been married

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

I think that the hardest thing about poly families might be legal issues. With same sex marriage, you're just ignoring gender when it comes to things like adoption and divorce and taxes and property and the like. I don't think anything has to be rewritten. With poly families, I would imagine, and correct me if I am wrong, filing taxes might be harder? Figuring out who gets the dependents and writeoffs? And dividing property in a divorce, if only one person leaves? Is it equal? What about custody of children? And legal guardianship?

Don't take my comment as one that disagrees with poly families. I just would think that all the legal waters would be harder to navigate. Not a reason to deny the families rights, but just me pondering how complex it would be.

Re: I've been married

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Yes, the legal divisions are the hard part. First needs to come the non-punitive allowance of them (they are a crime in Utah, but that's a whole 'nother issue).

Then comes the social acceptance of the idea of non 1-1 fidelity.

Then comes the huge ball o' wax which is sorting out things like survivor ship, spousal inheiritance, custody, etc.

It may be sorted out with private legal arrangements, and those move over to recognised solutions. It's possible it will be sorted out in our childrens' lifetimes, but I suspect more on the order of grandchildrens'.

Re: I've been married

[dragonet2.livejournal.com]

We had to go to a lawyer, fortunately he's a friend and not charging us the market rate for advice and paperwork.

It would be a lot more complicated if children were involved, we didn't get into our current relationship pattern until after childbearing age, and Jim and I did not have kids. Margene's grandkids think we're all go together and don't ask much about it.

We all have, through paperwork (oh, married property, etc. is a lot easier): powers of attorney, power of medical attorney, common ownership of all things that are considered property (house/cars), etc.

When you get married, a lot of the property rights are just assumed in the law. We use a tax program to calculate the taxes and figure out what the best way to file is from year to year.

And remember, every time you add one more adult to the group, the communications needs take another level of scale (i.e, with two, comms are like 10 to the second power, add another person and it's like 10 to the third power). I've got a lot of practice with three adults. I'm not sure how the much bigger groups do it without pissing someone off in the relationship.

Re: I've been married

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Lots of communication. Weighing the needs of the one, against the needs of the other, and figuring out what are just wants.

And people get pissed off. Then they take a deep breath and figure out why, and compromises get made. Sometimes there is pain, and crying and shouting and upset. But the desire to make it work usually wins out.

Or things break, and the pieces get picked up and one moves on.

At least thats been my observation and experience.

Re: I've been married

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Have I ever told you my "Math Theory" of relationships?

Re: I've been married

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Is this "do not let the partner with the Math degree sort out the restaurant bill, it will end badly?" :-)

Or is that just our family?

I have nothing substantive...

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

But in honour of this thread, family pictures are up (http://commodorified.livejournal.com/289765.html).

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

*cheers and rouses*

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

Reading it, point to point, was wonderful. They shot down just about every argument I've ever seen against same-sex marriage.

Honestly, not one person on the streets or whatever has said word one. My daughter isn't bitching that her friends are saying stupid shit (as 13 year olds tend to do). People outside of Iowa are acting as if we'd be flipping out shit or something, and we're not. The state isn't quite what people think it is. It's one of the reasons I agreed to move out here, actually. I did a little bit of homework and found out it wasn't as 'backwards' as I assumed it would be (what with me coming from NYC).

Has its problems, but I think we will work through them. Sensibly, like that court ruling.

I do think that our reputation may 'help the cause' because if IOWA can do it and not DIE, then anyplace can, right?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I thought that too. I didn't want to say it, because I am not an Iowan, but they are seen as more reactionary than I suspect they are; esp. from reading the decision.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

I believe the city and the school system has had benefits for same sex couples since before I moved here. One of the orders of nuns here went to the Vatican to request that women be allowed to be priests. Another order declared their motherhouse a nuclear free zone. A Christian anarchy group had their annual conference around here. We have a lot of social service programs. Unions are still ok out here. We have a Catholic Worker house in town and a Catholic Worker farm nearby. (And there is talk of building a Catholic Worker school out at the farm.)

Just don't try to have an abortion here, and race is still a bit of a problem. I'd like to think at least the latter is improving.

Oh and that Postville thing? That immigration raid? I only found out when I watched a documentary about it, but not only were there a lot of Mexicans working there, but a huge Orthodox Jewish community sprung up there, too. That really turned my view of Iowa on its head.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

what grounds are there, in the interest of the state, to disenfranchise one group just because another doesn't like them.

Yeah, that's the core issue in a nutshell, all right.

I'm not too worried about fake poly marriages. Fake traditional man-and-woman marriages, intended only to sign one partner up for the benefits of the other, have been around for a while, and the authorities have practice at sniffing them out. (And sometimes they've been for a good cause. W.H. Auden, who was gay, married Erika Mann, whom he hardly knew (and who was lesbian, as far as I know), to get her a British passport and out of Nazi Germany.)