Month: April 2009

Iowa Reax

ENGAGEDDavidPaulMorris:Getty

Anonymous Liberal:

When you take a step back and look at the basic legal argument behind these cases, the correct answer is remarkably clear. So clear, in fact, that I’m quite certain that future generations of lawyers and law students will look at these cases and wonder why it took so long for the courts to reach such an obvious conclusion, particularly in light of the extensive (and directly analogous) case law dealing with miscegenation laws and segregation. Once you accept the premise that there is nothing wrong with being gay (a premise which, I think, the vast majority of people–especially educated people like judges–accept), it becomes nearly impossible to make a principled legal argument in defense of laws that prohibit gay people from being married. It’s just such an obvious and straightforward violation of equal protection.

Ben Smith:

It’s really a sweeping, total win for the gay-rights side, rejecting any claim that objections to same-sex marriage can be seen as “rational,” rejecting a parallel civil union remedy, and pronouncing same-sex marriages and gay and lesbian couples essentially normal.

Alex Koppelman:

The decision is particularly significant politically because of Iowa’s pivotal place in the presidential nominating process. The issue could play a big role in the state’s Republican caucuses come 2012, especially as it would take until then before a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage could go to the voters. It’d be hard to blame former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, for instance, if he were dancing in the streets today. Someone like Huckabee, who already appeals to the evangelicals that play a key role in the GOP caucuses, could really benefit from this decision.

Ed Whelan writes against marriage:

The lawless judicial attack on traditional marriage and on representative government continues.

Will Duncan of the Marriage Law Foundation (an anti-marriage equality group):

The decision was unanimous that the marriage law is unconstitutional. It distorted the state’s interests in the marriage law and engaged in a little bit of mind-reading to suggest that the real reason a person would be concerned with redefining marriage is religious belief and that, the court thinks, is no real reason at all.

Pam Spaulding:

So much for blaming the coastal liberal radical homosexuals for this one.

(Photo: Paul Morris/Getty.)

Iowa Recap

The ruling here. Prognosis here. A human reaction here. A conservative offers a helpful summary of the arguments:

The court first held that same-sex couples are similarly situated with opposite-sex married couples even though they cannot have children together because they "are in committed and loving relationships, many raising families" and "official recognition of their status provides an institutional basis for defining their fundamental relational rights and responsibilities." The court believed society would benefit "from providing same-sex couples a stable framework within which to raise their children and the power to make health care and end-of-life decisions for loved ones, just as it does when that framework is provided for opposite-sex couples."

Imagine: actually thinking about the welfare of gay citizens as equal members of society. What a concept.  There's more:

Since marriage is "designed to bring a sense of order to the legal relationships of committed couples and their families" the court believed the only reason the law could treat same and opposite-sex couples differently is their "sexual orientation." The court held the statute classifies on this basis even though the statute does not mention orientation because "civil marriage with a person of the opposite sex is as unappealing to a gay or lesbian person as civil marriage with a person of the same sex is to a heterosexual." The current law, the court said, prevents gay or lesbian people from "simultaneously fulfill[ing] their deeply felt need for a committed personal relationship, as influenced by their sexual orientation, and gain[ing] the civil status and attendant benefits granted" by the marriage law.

The court held that sexual orientation discrimination should be subject to heightened scrutiny because (1) gays and lesbians have been the victims of discrimination; (2) no other state courts have found orientation relevant to a person's ability to contribute to society and other state statutes treat sexual orientation as irrelevant; (3) sexual orientation is "central to personal identity" and "highly resistance to change"; (4) and gays and lesbians lack political power as evidenced by their failure to convince a legislature to redefine marriage.

Meanwhile, In Texas

Thoreau isn't buying the creationists new line of attack:

They’re like a creature evolving to escape a predator’s notice, becoming smaller and smaller and fitting into ever-narrower cracks. Whatever you may think about their Trojan Horse language, it’s a hell of a lot more modest than the old flood geology. Evolution in action!

“Hold Her Legs Tightly”

The Guardian has posted a grueling video of a young girl being flogged in public by the Taliban in Pakistan. I found it very hard to watch, and I have a strong stomach. The description is rough enough:

Two men hold her arms and feet while a third, a black-turbaned fighter with a flowing beard, whips her repeatedly. "Please stop it," she begs, alternately whimpering or screaming in pain with each blow to the backside. "Either kill me or stop it now." A crowd of men stands by, watching silently. Off camera a voice issues instructions.

"Hold her legs tightly," he says as she squirms and yelps. After 34 lashes the punishment stops and the wailing woman is led into a stone building, trailed by a Kalashnikov-carrying militant. Reached by phone, Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan claimed responsibility for the flogging. "She came out of her house with another guy who was not her husband, so we must punish her. There are boundaries you cannot cross," he said.

It is rare to see the essence of violent Islamist patriarchy in a single clip.

More Torture Cases In Britain

This is Tory MP David Davies in the Commons:

"At the end of last week senior sources in MI5 and MI6 admitted that there were some 15 other cases similar to the Binyam Mohamed case. In these circumstances it seems to me that justice should be done in all cases, not just one." Mr Davis added that in at least one case that had gone to trial there was an "admission in court by MI5 that they co-operated with the Pakistani authorities'' before a suspect had his fingernails removed.

Marriage in The Heartland

As always, there is a backlash against civil equality. But the process of removing basic constitutional rights by amending the constitution to strip a specified minority of such rights is, understandably, an onerous process. In Iowa, particularly onerous:

Lobbying began immediately for lawmakers to launch the long process of a constitutional amendment to define marriage as only between a man and a woman. No such legislation will be approved this session in the Iowa Senate, McCoy said. Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal won’t allow it, he said. Such an amendment requires the votes of a simple majority in both the Iowa House and Iowa Senate in two consecutive sessions, followed by a passing vote of the people of Iowa…. Such a change would require approval in consecutive legislative sessions and a public vote, which means a ban would could not be put in place until at least 2012 unless lawmakers take up the issue in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, marriages for all Iowans, and not just the 97 percent who are straight, will be legal within three weeks.