Another Iowan Discovers Secularism

In addition to refueling the joke-tellers of the northern Great Plains for years to come, the absurd decision of the Iowa Supreme Court striking down the state's statute defining marriage as a state between one man and one woman provides at once both a striking example of advocacy adjudication in the text of the decision, which verges both on the maudlin in its treatment of the plaintiffs' case and their "committed relationships and the morally obtuse in its bland denial of the obvious centrality of the mother-father partnership to the upbringing of children, and also a textbook case of judicial supremacy resulting in the complete evacuation of any semblance of democratic input on issues our secularist ruling classes have decided for themselves.

The falsehoods shot through this decision are legion; Philo-Junius will spend some time refuting them in turn, but will begin with an enumeration of the more glaring:

"Almost every professional group that has studied the issue indicates children are not harmed when raised by same-sex couples, but to the contrary, benefit from them."

"The legislature, in carrying out its constitutional role to make public policy decisions, enacted a law that effectively excludes gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage."

"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."

The mind reels at the bald mendacity of this reasoning. The "deeply felt need for a committed personal relationship, as influenced by their sexual orientation" has been by this ruling made the essential, defining element of marriage, overwhelming all state or social interests.