Nice try on differentiating between heterosexual and homosexual couples and procreation. But Equal Protection applies to individuals – not couples. We are talking about an individual’s right to civil marriage.

There will always be differences between individuals – the Iowa Supreme Court also addresses this in their ruling in discussing Equal Protection. But again – as has been stated previously, the government must demonstrate how legislation that targets a certain group substantially achieves a governmental objective – and the court found that there was no governmental objective that was substantially achieved by denying same sex marriages. Let’s keep with the procreation argument. What governmental objective is there regarding procreation? The government could want to increase procreation, decrease procreation, maintain the current level of procreation, etc. Since same sex couples cannot naturally procreate, they have no affect on any governmental objective regarding procreation. Allowing same sex couples to marry would neither increase nor decrease the number of children born. The only way you could legally use the fact that same sex couples cannot procreate as basis for denying same sex marriage would be if there was a legal requirement for all civil marriages to produce offspring. But even then, the state couldn’t legally limit the scope of legislation denying civil marriage to just same sex couples – the state would have to deny civil marriage to all couples incapable of natural procreation, including sterile heterosexual couples.

No one has been able to demonstrate what governmental objective is substantially achieved by denying same sex marriage.

And of course that argument is a rather transparent and clumsy attempt to avoid the fact that no homosexual couple, regardless of the condition of their genitals, their reproductive system, their choice, or any other factor, is capable of procreating.

But of course, admitting that would mean that Chad would have to admit that heterosexual and homosexual couples are different, and that would completely undercut his whining about “equal protection”. Chad can’t rationalize away the difference, so he tries to pretend that children and procreation are meaningless. He is willing to denigrate and put down the most basic portion and valuable reason for why society esteems and privileges heterosexual marriage as unimportant because it ruins his argument for getting it.

That’s redefining marriage. What comes next?

CLDavid, I hope you’re not expecting logic from them. Nearly every comment to this post (note, I say nearly) has been emotional, if not wildly so. . . .

No, I don’t expect calm logic from the crowd at BTB.

The point of my post script was to warn them that I expect passion instead of reason from them. They are on notice that I will dismiss any argument that doesn’t attempt to demonstrate the correct nature of the Iowa ruling (and similar rulings) from proper judicial principles.

When I’ve checked out the responses, I’ll give you a report.

You can’t use procreation to defend the heterosexual marriage without procreating being a requirement for all heterosexual marriage. I’m sure that’s a minor change most religion’s would be OK with – procreate first, then you can get married :^) Of course, this doesn’t consider that there are heterosexual married couples who are equally incapable of procreating, and perfectly fertile heterosexual couples who choose not to procreate.

Go ahead and throw out the next weak, unsupported, illogical argument . . . I can be here as long as necessary :^)

Not really. Society has found that heterosexual marriage, especially when it comes to the production and raising of children, manages quite nicely several of the issues that come up around procreation and, to top it off, encourages societal stability. Committed couples do OK; married couples do better at this vital and important action.

Since gay couples are completely incapable of natural procreation, that means two things: one, the societal impacts of gay sex relationships are different, and two, that heterosexual and homosexual couplings are different. Since they are different, the state may treat them differently without the issue of equal protection.

And I love how you’re picking apart ONE paragraph when the decision, and a well written one, is 69 pages long. Just from quotes I’ve read on other websites, I know that paragraph isn’t the central logic to their argument. Way to pick the weakest bit of reasoning from 69 pages and take it apart. This is the intellectual equivalent of a grown man beating up little old lady. How Gay, how patriotic. How about someone actually deal with, you know, the actual decision. I doubt you all are experts on Iowa’s Constitution, how about trying to back up your claims with something new and interesting: Facts.

That’s a little grand for Dick Cheney. But at any rate, no.

Since there are also heterosexual couples who have seemingly managed to make perfectly good committed relationships without marriage, it is then obvious that heterosexual couples do not need marriage either, so the natural conclusion is to do away with civil marriage altogether . . . :^)

The Iowa Supreme Court has not determined that the sexual needs outweigh any governmental consideration. The court decided that the law denying civil marriage did not substantially achieve the governmental objectives offered by the Polk County attorney’s office – that is a big difference. Yes the court mentioned the notion of intimacy (exactly ONCE) in its 69 page ruling. *IF* the Polk County attorney’s office could have provided a governmental objective that was substantially achieved by limiting same sex marriage, the court would have ruled differently. But the Polk County attorney’s office couldn’t – because there aren’t any.

Not really. Gay men are one thing; the behavior and culture that the gay community supports, endorses, and pushes is quite another.

I’m quite aware of the fact that gay men can be committed. I’m even more aware of the fact that these gay people are mocked as “foolish”, “patriarchal”, and “assimiliationist” by the gay community.

Finally, I’m also aware of the fact that there are gay men who seemingly have managed to make perfectly good committed relationships without marriage. Since that’s the case, there is no imperative to provide it, and the discussion should then shift to what other things society might see fit to provide to gay men who make such a choice.

Because marriage is not a matter of just two adults; it is a matter of society extending benefits and privileges to those two adults. What those two adults do in private may be their own business, but if they demand that society give them favors for it, society should be and is empowered to put conditions on what behavior it will reward.

Furthermore, by your logic, bans on incestuous and plural marriage should be unconstitutional; after all, those are “two adults”.

Unfortunately for that argument, Chad, the Iowa Supreme Court has already established that the sexual needs of the parties involved outweigh any other government consideration. If they had wished to make that distinction, they would not have tried to argue that “intimacy” was relevant, or get into their discussion about whether or not something was sexually “appealing”.

The simple fact of the matter is that the Court needed to invent a right to marry whatever was sexually appealing to you in order to inactivate the established statute. It did so, very stupidly.

In my comment, I’m making reference to the court’s using one statute to invalidate another.

They overreached this time. As did the MA court which, as I noted, the minority noted ignored the legislators’ understanding of the limitations of the statute they cited in their ruling.

This is getting to be nothing more than fear-mongering. Take your argument from #102 regarding pedophila. IF a case similar to Varnum v Brien were brought before the court, the state could argue that legislation against pedophila (and a legislative classification identifying pedophiles) were necessary and substantially related to the achievement of the governmental objective of protecting children. In that situation, the governmental objective and the corresponding legislative classification would undoubtedly pass intermediate scrutiny (as explained in the full judgment), in which case such an appellate challenge would fail.

#103 The court only decides on the issues presented by the cases it hears. As a result, the court only decided on the issue of gay marriage, since that was the core issue in Varnum v Brien. Therefore it is fully possible for there to be an inconsistency in the laws at a given point in time. The court cannot act on legislation that has not been challenged by a plaintiff. Since Varnum v Brien only challenged the constitutionality of one statute. I find i highly ironic that you have derided so-called ‘judicial activism’ and legislating from the bench in one breath, then deride the court for NOT legislating from the bench to provide consistency across the legislative record based on their current decision. Obviously talking in circles just for the sake of sustaining an argument.

Could this decision have implications on heterosexual civil marriage? Potentially. That’s why citizens have the option for going to the courts to seek redress. It is very possible that the government could provide viable arguments why denying something like polygamy substantially advances governmental objectives and thus uphold that law.

Constitutional law provides its own set of checks and balances in determining the validity of the argument at hand. Just because the state could not provide a viable argument on why prohibiting same-sex marriage was substantially necessary to further the specified governmental objectives in Varnum v Brien, does not mean they would be unable to do so if a similar contest arose regarding polygamy, as that could very well be related to different governmental objectives, not to mention that the legislative classification of polygamists would have to be evaluated separately to determine if such a grouping is substantially related to the governmental objectives.

But, as I pointed out, insisting that “equal protection” requires marriage for gay couples while denying it for other citizens of various sexual proclivities totally contradicts the meaning of the word “equal”. Indeed, since not all heterosexual couples are allowed to get married under Iowa state law, the court is inconsistently applying its doctrine — which is patently UNEQUAL.