Friday, August 31, 2007

First Same-Sex Couple Married in Iowa

It's official. The fat lady is singing. Iowans thought we were living in a representative republic but actually judges rule Iowa. In his infinite wisdom, Judge Robert Hanson ruled that Iowa's 1998 Defense of Marriage Act, which allowed marriage only between a man and a woman, violated the constitutional rights of due process and equal protection of six gay couples who had sued.

From "First Gay Couple Legally Married in Iowa" by Henry C. Jackson, posted 8/31/07 at ChicagoTribune.com

DES MOINES, Iowa - A minister married two men outside his Iowa home Friday morning, sealing the state's first legal same-sex wedding. Less than 24 hours earlier, a judge had thrown out Iowa's ban on gay marriage.

The Rev. Mark Stringer declared college students Sean Fritz and Tim McQuillan legally wed.

"This is it. We're married. I love you," Fritz told McQuillan after the ceremony on the front lawn of the Unitarian minister's home in Des Moines.

...The window of opportunity could be narrow, though.

County attorney John Sarcone promised a quick appeal, and he immediately asked Hanson for a stay that would prevent gays and lesbians from getting marriage licenses until the appeal was resolved. A hearing on the stay request is likely next week, said Camilla Taylor, an attorney with Lambda Legal, a New York-based gay rights organization.

In the meantime, the applications began rolling in.

The ultimate irony is that the vast majority of homosexuals do NOT want to marry. Gay activists merely want to destroy heterosexual marriage as the societal ideal because it stands as a glorious reminder of the truth that women and men were designed for one another. The fragile ideology of gay activists cannot tolerate any reminders of that truth...

Read it, and weep.