The Iowa Supreme Court in 2009 voted 7-0 that the Defense of Marriage Act that forbid same sex couples from marrying violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. The judges, appointed by both Democratic and Republican Governors, agreed.
This past election, 3 of the 7 judges were up for a retention vote. All 3 were defeated. The current Governor, who appointed 3 of the 7 that voted for the equal protection plan has yet to appoint the new justices causing some harms.
Emboldened by this retention vote, the Iowa House passed HJR 6 to put a constituitonal amendment before the Iowa voters that would ban gay marriage. More over the fold.
The debate was only 3 hours, but it was emotional. The Sioux Journal reported that two Represenatives refused to answer questions from other legisltators. This is nearly unheard of in the Iowa legislature. The debate did get very emotional, with one Dubuque Represenative explaining that his God Daughter had left Iowa 15 years ago because of the stigma of being gay in Iowa.
The comment getting most of the heat from bloggers to the Des Moines Register is one from the Judiciary Committee Chair.
"House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rich Anderson, R-Clarinda, said the equal protection clause requires lawmakers to treat those "similarly situated" equally. "Homosexual and heterosexual couples are not similarly situated in marriage" because same-sex couples cannot, by themselves, procreate."
The comments have been pretty anti republican so far, but I don't know if they will stay that way. The House has a huge 60-40 advantage for the Republicans, but the Senate is 26-24 Democratic. That means that HJR 6 is probably dead. To become law, it has to pass both houses of the legislature for two consecutive sessions and then go to the vote of the people. Though I don't know the vote of the people today, the earliest we could vote on it is 2014. More than likely, the earlies vote would be 2016. That means 5 more years of living with the law that allows gay marriage. Hopefully, that will be enough time to let the issue go away.
I am disappointed that three demorats supported the Resolution. This allows the Republicans to say it was bi-partisan. I understand their position. In many places in this state, 60-70% of the people favor a ban on gay marriage.
I am proud of the other Democrats who made the Republicans look discrimatory jerks who didn't even want to talk about the issue in public.
"Republican Reps. Glen Massie of Des Moines and Kim Pearson of Pleasant Hill"
couldn't even express opinions of why they thought gay people should be discriminated against in 1000 ways. Since both are from urban areas, I would hope they would lose in the next election. The three rural democrats probably are safe.
Minority Leader, Patrick Murphy, spoke very elegantly on his own transformation. In 1998, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act. He said he had learned since then that he was wrong. A lot of democrats in rural areas took a tough vote today to do the right thing. As my mentor and friend Laura Kenny said, "I have never been prouder to be a democrat than I am right now."