By Voddie Bauchman
In a shocking unanimous decision, Iowa’s Supreme Court joined the ranks of states like California, Massachusetts, and Connecticut in declaring that homosexuals have a Constitutional “right” to marry. While the cases on the coast are alarming enough, the idea of a state in America’s heartland falling prey to the sodomy lobby is almost unthinkable. That is, until you understand the philosophical underpinnings of such decisions and the cultural trajectory we are currently witnessing. Remember, Iowa was the first state to signal to the rest of America that Barack Obama (among the most radically pro-homosexual, pro-abortion, neo-Marxist candidates ever to run for the office of President) really had a shot to win it all.
The judges who made this decision are products of the same culture that produced President Obama. A closer look at their decision reveals the kind of reasoning they employed. Their decision is rife with emotion, question-begging logic, and legal precedents that will leave the polygamists, polyamorists, and pedophiles jumping for joy. I know there are those who consider such arguments “red herrings” that have nothing to do with the case at hand, but Elizabeth F. Emens of the University of Chicago School of Law would beg to differ. Read her paper, “MONOGAMY’S LAW: COMPULSORY MONOGAMY AND POLYAMOROUS EXISTENCE” and try to convince yourself that we are not on a slippery slope (one Emens embraces gladly). You may also want to read Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion in Lawrence v. Texas.
Though I am not a lawyer (nor do I play one on TV), I do read the law. I read briefs, decisions, dissenting opinions, and I have been known to refer to my copy of “Blackstone” now and again. Nevertheless, the law was never meant to be mysterious. It doesn’t take a lawyer to read and understand the decision these seven men and women made in Iowa. Moreover, it does not take a law degree to know that their philosophical presuppositions are not only erroneous, but dangerous.
ERROR #1: HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE IS A CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE
Right off the bat the Iowa decision jumps on the “Gay is the New Black” bandwagon. They followed the logic of leading homosexual advocates who argue that homosexuality is not only a “Civil Rights” issue; it is morally equivalent to blackness. As a black man, I am insulted by this line of reasoning. As a thinking man, I am amused. However, as an Constitution-loving American, I am frightened when I see it in legal decisions. The Iowa Supreme Court argued:
In the first reported case of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Iowa, In re Ralph, 1 Morris 1 (Iowa 1839), we refused to treat a human being as property to enforce a contract for slavery and held our laws must extend equal protection to persons of all races and conditions. 1 Morris at 9. This decision was seventeen years before the United States Supreme Court infamously decided Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 15 L. Ed. 691 (1856), which upheld the rights of a slave owner to treat a person as property. Similarly, in Clark v. Board of Directors, 24 Iowa 266 (1868), and Coger v. North West. Union Packet Co., 37 Iowa 145 (1873), we struck blows to the concept of segregation long before the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873 (1954). Iowa was also the first state in the nation to admit a woman to the practice of law, doing so in 1869. Admission of Women to the Bar, 1 Chicago Law Times 76, 76 (1887). Her admission occurred three years before the United States Supreme Court affirmed the State of Illinois’ decision to deny women admission to the practice of law.
Notice all the references to “Civil Rights” cases. Notice also that their argument begs the question! They do not ‘prove’ that homosexuality is a Civil Rights issue; they assume it. There is no Constitutional Right to sodomy. Moreover, homosexuals are not deprived of their Civil Rights in marriage, because they have the same rights in that regard as every American. That’s right... HOMOSEXUALS HAVE THE RIGHT TO MARRY! What they don’t have the right to is same-sex marriage. This, however, is not a right, but a definition. Hence, the court addressed the wrong issue. Listen to the emotion and philosophical presupposition in the argument:
It is true the marriage statute does not expressly prohibit gay and lesbian persons from marrying; it does, however, require that if they marry, it must be to someone of the opposite sex. Viewed in the complete context of marriage, including intimacy, civil marriage with a person of the opposite sex is as unappealing to a gay or lesbian person as civil marriage with a person of the same sex is to a heterosexual.
Incredible! The Supreme Court of Iowa is basing its opinion on what is “unappealing to a gay or lesbian person.” This is not jurisprudence; this is social engineering. Unfortunately, the court knows that most people will never read their decision, and those who do are so awash in the relativism of the culture that they will not recognize the overreach. What’s worse, most people will view the court’s action as heroic and liberating. But wait... there’s more:
Thus, the right of a gay or lesbian person under the marriage statute to enter into a civil marriage only with a person of the opposite sex is no right at all. Under such a law, gay or lesbian individuals cannot simultaneously fulfill their deeply felt need for a committed personal relationship, as influenced by their sexual orientation, and gain the civil status and attendant benefits granted by the statute. Instead, a gay or lesbian person can only gain the same rights under the statute as a heterosexual person by negating the very trait that defines gay and lesbian people as a class—their sexual orientation.
In other words, a right that you cannot enjoy is no right at all. Imagine this phrase applied to other sexual deviants. “Thus, the right of a [pedophile] under the marriage statute to enter a civil marriage only with a person [of legal age] is no right at all.” This is utterly absurd. However, we have been so inundated with the “Gay=Black” mantra that most people don’t even blink. What happens when the polyamorists wear us down?
This is a hallmark of the homosexual lobby. Just say it enough and people will begin to believe it. We have judges in Iowa who have said that a persons behavior (homosexual sodomy) is equivalent to a person’s ethnicity. By the way, Michael Steele, the new head of the RNC, made the same argument in his interview with GQ Magazine. This is an echo of the statement of Julian Bond, former head of the NAACP, who said:
African Americans... were the only Americans who were enslaved for two centuries, but we were far from the only Americans suffering discrimination then and now,” Bond said. “Sexual disposition parallels race. I was born this way. I have no choice. I wouldn’t change it if I could. Sexuality is unchangeable. (Ertha Melzer, “NAACP chair says ‘gay rights are civil rights’, ”Washington Blade, Apr. 08, 2005)
The justices have clearly been influenced by this type of thinking. They even refer to “sexual orientation” as an “immutable characteristic” later in the decision. I am sure there are thousands of “Ex-Gays” who would be glad to testify on this point. However, I would venture to say the ‘verdict’ was in on this issue long before there was any testimony. The Justices are making law based on the assumption that homosexual sodomy is a Civil Right.
My blackness is an immutable characteristic; homosexual sodomy is not. There is no established, irrefutable evidence that people are born homosexual. Even if such evidence existed, it would no more make homosexual sodomy acceptable than a domestic violence gene would make brutality against women acceptable. Additionally, comparing homosexual marriage to so-called inter-racial marriage (a term I reject since though there are many ethnicities, there is but one race finding its origin in Adam) is an absolute farce. Loving v. Virginia, for example, was not about a re-definition of marriage. Instead, it was a recognition of the fact that black men and white men (like black women and white women) are essentially the same. Therefore, denying a black man and a white woman (or vise versa) the right to marry is truly denying a god-given, unalienable. This was a recognition of the manhood of black men and the womanhood of black women as image-bearers of the Most High God. Marriage itself did not have to change as a result of the Loving decision.
ERROR #2: HOMOSEXUALS ARE AN OPPRESSED CLASS OF PEOPLE
One of the most sinister arguments in the homosexual activists arsenal is the idea that homosexuals are an oppressed “class” of people. In essence, the homosexual lobby has convinced seemingly intelligent people that the revulsion some people feel when confronted with unnatural, demeaning, health-destroying sexual acts (God calls it an abomination) makes the performers of those acts an oppressed minority. Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen planted the seeds for this strategy in their 1989 book, After the Ball. They wrote:
AIDS, though a loose cannon, is a cannon indeed. As cynical as it may seem, AIDS gives us a chance, however brief, to establish ourselves as a victimized minority legitimately deserving of America’s special protection and care. (Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the ‘90s, New York: Doubleday, 1989. p. xxv)
It appears the After the Ball strategy has worked like a charm. The homosexual activists campaign for “victimized minority” status appears to be the blueprint for the Iowa decision. The decision reads:
So, today, this court again faces an important issue that hinges on our definition of equal protection. This issue comes to us with the same importance as our landmark cases of the past. The same-sex-marriage debate waged in this case is part of a strong national dialogue centered on a fundamental, deep-seated, traditional institution that has excluded, by state action, a particular class of Iowans. This class of people asks a simple and direct question: How can a state premised on the constitutional principle of equal protection justify exclusion of a class of Iowans from civil marriage?
Note again the question-begging logic. How did homosexual sodomy get “class” status? I wonder if the Justices consider the members of NAMBLA (the North American Man/Boy Love Association... Motto: Eight is Too Late) a “class of people” whose grievances need to be addressed under the equal protection clause. How is homosexual sodomy different from other forms of aberrant sexual behavior? Where does the logic of this argument end? The decision reads the Iowa Constitution in a manner that strains credulity:
The foundational principle of equal protection is expressed in article I, section 6 of the Iowa Constitution, which provides: “All laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation; the general assembly shall not grant to any citizen or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens.”
Somehow I don’t think the framers of the Iowa Constitution who wrote, “WE THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF IOWA, grateful to the Supreme Being for the blessings hitherto enjoyed, and feeling our dependence on Him for a continuation of those blessings, do ordain and establish a free and independent government, by the name of the State of Iowa”, ever envisioned those with a predilection for deviant sexual acts when they penned the equal protection clause. Moreover, Iowa had anti sodomy laws at its founding, and a statute in 1892 that read, “Any person who shall commit sodomy, shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary not more than ten years nor less than one year.” (Laws of Iowa 1892, page 66, ch. 39, enacted Mar. 26, 1892) How then do the current Justices find room to redefine marriage in this statute? They don’t! They simply made it up.
ERROR #3: HOMOSEXUALS ARE ALREADY ‘BEING’ MARRIED... WE’RE JUST MAKING IT LEGAL
The third major error in the Iowa decision is their unfortunate assumption that the existence of quasi-marital relationships among homosexuals serves to support the idea of legitimizing such relationships.
Therefore, with respect to the subject and purposes of Iowa’s marriage laws, we find that the plaintiffs are similarly situated compared to heterosexual persons. Plaintiffs are in committed and loving relationships, many raising families, just like heterosexual couples. Moreover, official recognition of their status provides an institutional basis for defining their fundamental relational rights and responsibilities, just as it does for heterosexual couples. Society benefits, for example, from providing same- sex couples a stable framework within which to raise their children and the power to make health care and end-of-life decisions for loved ones, just as it does when that framework is provided for opposite-sex couples.
This statement raises a number of important questions. How do the Justices know that the plaintiffs’ relationships were committed and loving? How does a same-sex couple raise children “just like heterosexual couples” if they do not have the same male/female makeup? Can a mother function ‘exactly’ like a father? Can a father fulfill all the roles of a mother? Is the law in the business of defining love? What legal standard did the Justices use to define commitment? If one of these couples experienced adultery, separation, or divorce, would that have change the decision? If so, then the law is purely situational and there is no longer an objective standard. If not, then the statement is superfluous and has no place in a legal decision.
I’m amazed at how far the Justices have moved away from the practice of law. These men and women are engaging in social engineering from the bench. And, as with the aforementioned errors, this point would have catastrophic implications if applied to other sexual deviants. For example, wouldn’t legalizing polyamory go a long way toward “provid[ing] an institutional basis for defining their fundamental relational rights and responsibilities, just as it does for [monogamous] couples”?
Unfortunately, most Christians have no idea how to think about, let along reason through and respond to these things. Moreover, the legal profession has been duped most people into believing that the law is so beyond the average person that we need not try to understand it. However, these statements are crystal clear. They are also not law. This is a clear overreach. The Homosexual lobby has co-opted the print and television media, universities, law schools, legislatures, and the courts. This was the plan Kirk and Madsen laid out in After the Ball:
The campaign we outline in this book, though complex, depends centrally upon a program of unabashed propaganda, firmly grounded in long-established principles of psychology and advertising. (Kirk & Madsen)
It appears their campaign has been successful not only on the coasts, but throughout the country. Who would have thought the midwest would fall like this? Even if Kirk and Madsen envisioned this happening, it was only in their wildest dreams.
HT: Voddie Bauchman
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