Tag Archives: Iowa

Last night Dr. Jeff outfitted me in one of his colorful native costumes and we headed to Union Square to join a small but energetic crowd of activists celebrating yesterday’s approval of marriage equality in Iowa. Speakers included heads of several New York-based marriage equality groups, lead by Civil Rights Front activist Heath Tucker who organized several renditions of the …

“Today, the Iowa Supreme Court recognized that the constitutional guarantee of equal protection requires that same-sex couples have ‘full access to the institution of civil marriage.’ The ruling makes clear that civil unions or domestic partnerships cannot meet the demands of full constitutional equality. “We hope the California Supreme Court will uphold the essential principle of equality regardless of political …

Towards the end of the clip, the correspondent touches on how Iowa’s constitutional amendment process works.

Enjoy the ‘sploding heads…. -“This is scary. Unlike Massachusetts, Iowa is an agricultural breadbasket. Watch crop yields plumett now. God takes His revenge in many ways. Just ask those people burned out of their homes (or had their crops dry up from drought) in California. Russia’s crop yields plummeted too, once she became an atheistic nation in 1922.”-“More judges added …

Pam Spaulding has the complete PDF of the ruling. In this case, we must decide if our state statute limiting civil marriage to a union between a man and a woman violates the Iowa Constitution, as the district court ruled. On our review, we hold the Iowa marriage statute violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution. Therefore, we …

“Today Iowa becomes the first state not on either of the nation’s two liberal coasts to impose counterfeit, homosexual ‘marriage’ or its mischievous twin, ‘civil unions,’ on its citizens through judicial tyranny. To call this decision bankrupt is to understate its perniciousness. The evil genius of the pro-sodomy movement is that it targets noble institutions like marriage and adoption in …

This morning the Iowa Supreme Court issued its decision approving marriage equality, making Iowa the first midwestern state to do so. The Iowa Supreme Court this morning struck down a 1998 state law that limits marriage to one man and one woman. The ruling is viewed as a victory for the gay rights movement in Iowa and elsewhere, and a …

Marriage equality activists will gather at 6:30pm tonight in NYC’s Union Square to react to the decisions by the Iowa Supreme Court and Vermont’s House of Representatives. The Iowa decision is expected to be posted online here by 9:30am Eastern time. Vermont’s House is expected to formalize last night’s vote sometime in mid-afternoon. Join the Facebook group The Power here.

Tomorrow the Iowa Supreme Court will issue its decision on marriage equality. The case involves six same-sex Iowa couples who sued Polk County Recorder Timothy Brien in 2005 after his office denied them marriage licenses. The lawsuit argued that it would be unlawful to ban same-sex couples from marriage based on the equal protection and due process guarantees of the …

Tomorrow the Iowa Supreme Court will hear arguments on the constitutionality of the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. The case, Varnum vs. Brien, could make Iowa the first state in the Midwest to legalize same-sex marriage. Other high-court decisions that favor gay rights advocates have come from traditionally liberal coastal states, including California, Massachusetts and Connecticut. “This is the heartland …

Check out this incredible shot of a tornado touching down in Iowa as caught by local woman Lori Mehman. Somehow nobody was killed. And down in Fort Lauderdale our own Father Tony caught a gorgeous shot of a waterspout just off the coast.

Yesterday the appropriately named Iowa House Minority Leader Christopher Rants failed in his attempt to force the state legislature to vote on a proposed amendment banning same-sex marriage. Rants tried a procedural vote that would have moved the measure, House Joint Resolution 8, out of committee and before the full House for a possible debate. Rants’ maneuver failed on a …

Several hundred Iowans gathered at their state capital yesterday in a “prayer walk” against gay marriage. The attendees are demanding that legislators launch an effort to amend the state constitution. The issue of gay marriage gained attention last August when District Judge Robert Hanson ruled that Iowa’s marriage law is unconstitutional. He ordered the Polk County recorder to permit same-sex …

As mentioned several posts down, yesterday an Iowa judge struck down that state’s Defense of Marriage Act. Wasting no time, two Iowa men were married on their front lawn this morning. But at 11am, after 20 gay couples had filed for marriage licenses, the same judge issued a verbal stay of his order, pending the appeal of his decision to …

An Iowa judge struck down that state’s Defense of Marriage Act today, ruling it unconstitutional. Lambda Legal and Iowa’s former counsel general represented six couples denied marriage licenses in 2005, arguing that under equal access and due process guarantees in Iowa’s state constitution, the couples should not have been barred from marrying. The Iowa Civil Liberties Union and others filed …