Iowa Supreme Court Invents 'Right' to 'Gay Marriage'

4/3/2009
Liberty Counsel (www.lc.org/)

If you think you saw a fight in California to restore natural marriage with the successful passage of Proposition 8, then hold on to your hats.

The Iowa Supreme Court has earned its rightful place in the judicial activism hall of shame. It has infected the wholesome heartland with the same malady eating away at natural marriage, family and morality at our nation�s coastal and ideological fringes.

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DES MOINES, IA (Liberty Counsel) � Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Counsel and Liberty Alliance Action, and Associate Dean with Liberty University School of Law, released the following statement today in response to news that the Iowa Supreme Court has issued an opinion imagining a �fundamental� constitutional right to �same-sex marriage�:

�Here we go again,� said Barber. �While citing the specter of �equal protection,� the Iowa Supreme Court today has unanimously joined a leftist gaggle of ideologically driven judges in California, Massachusetts and Connecticut, creating, from thin air, a phantom �right� to the ridiculous, oxymoronic and postmodern �gay� marriage counterfeit.

�Although, not controlling here� continued Barber, �the U.S. Supreme Court long ago rejected the untenable notion that �equal protection� requires two biologically incompatible persons to be permitted to �marry.� Marriage, of course, by its very spiritual, historical and biological nature, requires binary compatibility. It is no more discriminatory to disallow two men from marrying each other, than it is to prohibit a man from marrying his house plant.

In Baker v. Nelson, our nation�s high court rightfully observed: �The institution of marriage as a union of man and woman, uniquely involving the procreation and rearing of children within a family, is as old as the book of Genesis. � Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.�

�Taking its solemn vow seriously in Baker,� said Barber, �the Supreme Court exercised judicial restraint; properly holding that to rule otherwise would constitute an unconstitutional exercise of �judicial legislation.�

�What a contrast. Today, the Iowa Supreme Court cast aside any semblance of judicial restraint doing exactly that which the U.S. Supreme Court detested. It unequivocally engaged in �judicial legislation,� unconstitutionally manufacturing law from the bench. No one in his right mind would suggest that the framers of the Iowa Constitution could have ever imagined the silly and incongruous notion of �same sex marriage,� much less considered it a �fundamental right.�

�The Iowa Supreme Court has earned its rightful place in the judicial activism hall of shame. It has infected the wholesome heartland with the same malady eating away at natural marriage, family and morality at our nation�s coastal and ideological fringes.

�If you think you saw a fight in California to restore natural marriage with the successful passage of Proposition 8, then hold on to your hats. Something tells me the fine folks of Iowa don�t cotton to seven black robed autocrats supplanting mid-western values with San Francisco vice.�

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Liberty Counsel is a nonprofit litigation, education and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the traditional family. Established in 1989, Liberty Counsel is a nationwide organization with offices in Florida, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., and hundreds of affiliate attorneys across the Nation.

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1 - 10 of 19 Comments

whitney
4 years ago
Hello? This is a CATHOLIC website. the CATHOLIC church says homosexual marriage is WRONG, because Holy Mother Church states that ANY AND ALL sexual relations outside of marriage or between anyone other than a husband and wife are ABSOLUTELY UNEQUIVOCALLY WRONG. So why should we care that our CIVIL courts are acting against God's intent for sexuality? Because this is our nation--we are going to give an account to God for how we respond to sin; and this is sinful. If we don't stand up and say it's wrong, who will?

Are we just going to sit on our hands while our country gets flushed down the toilet? Do we want to raise our children in a country where sin is legal and acceptable? When a society begins to legalize sin and murder, where does it stop? If Christianity is against all these "legal" things, when are people going to start saying that we're saying and doing "illegal things". Paul says that government is a terror only to bad conduct...so we should let "Caesar" know when they're making bad conduct good conduct. Good article, thanks for your courage.
Andy Holland
4 years ago
Judicial Legislation - government of lawyers, by lawyers, for lawyers - with unfettered arrogance to admonish the People! All bow down to the bench in their religious robes, raised seats and marble temple courts!

What's next, legalizing marriage between humans and small furry animals? Why not multiple partners? Why shouldn't a community of live-ins have such "rights"?

Once the door to absurdity is opened, there is no end in sight to where it will lead - people don't see hell until they are there.

The mystery of Babylon mother of Harlots, now they are united, they imagine they can do anything! So much for E'Pluribus Unum - give us one nation under God.
alex
4 years ago
i believe i understand the reasons invoked for same-sex marriage namely privacy rights and equal protection. What i am very confused about is what is invoked to say that it's only between TWO people? Exactly! So if you have same sex marriage why can't I not marry more than one woman?
Drake
4 years ago
In response to "Eddie": we don't buy judges in Iowa. Thanks for weighing in about something you don't know, though.
Laurence
4 years ago
Homosexual relationships are morally sinful. Homosexual marriages? Worse. It is an attempt to impose on all people the acceptance of an abnormal and mortally sinful behavior such as homosexuality as good and normal.

The American Medical Association has done a great disservice to society, especially to homosexuals, by arbitrarily proclaiming homosexuality as normal. When an illness is proclaimed as normal, how will it ever be cured? It only takes honesty to self and common sense to be able to recognize that homosexual behavior is not normal and is not good. But most of all, we have the benefit of Divine Revelation that condemns homosexual behavior as sinful.

Not too long along, the American Psychological Association also proclaimed relationships between adults and minors to be normal. Fortunately, there was such a denunciation of it that APA backed off.

Homosexual activists and their supporters are only adding to their sins and to the problems of society by insisting on a perverted concept of marriage such as homosexual marriage.

We love homosexuals because they are people, not because of their sinful homosexual behavior. Because we love them, we can never agree to their misguided idea that homosexuality is good or normal. Until they repent, they are especially hurting themselves because of their sinful homosexual behavior.

May God have mercy on the unrepentant homosexuals and their supporters and grant them the grace to see and acknowledge their errors and repent of them.

All of us are called by God to repent of all our sins. Homosexuals are not exempt.
Nick
4 years ago
Nice article. You know nothing about Iowa, Iowans or the Iowa Supreme Court. I could care less about your position but don't comment on matters and people of which you know very little about. Furthermore, as a lawyer you should understand that this imagined notion of "legislating" from the bench is harmful to our laws and to the judiciary. They are only "legislating" when you disagree with their opinion. It baffles me that Barber, an attorney, would be so petty using this term "legislating" as a political tool even though he is or should be aware of the damage it is causing to the judiciary. Shameful. And I am a faithful Catholic.
Holly
4 years ago
We all can claim marriage. The first marriage took place in Genesis between our first parents.
Adam and Eve.
This article isnt negative. Its very informative.
John
4 years ago
People of Iowa, do not forget these so called Judges and Council people in next election. Your vote is a Right and not Gay Marriages!
Dan
4 years ago
How long will it be until these people also imagine a right to polygamy? How about the rights of two siblings to be married? A brother and a sister? A brother and a brother? The thought is clearly disgusting to anybody whose soul isn't drowning in sin, but that is the logical fulfillment of the argument that the state has no right to prevent people from marrying.
lachy
4 years ago
I don't understand the claim that religion seems to have on marriage. It is not yours to claim; it is OLDER than you.

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