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Originally Posted by UGAalum94
Maybe I'm misreading, but is seemed like the issue in Iowa was specific to marriage, which the majority do oppose. The editorial suggested people think of what is being offered as simply civil unions, but that wasn't the language of the ruling, and it's the language of "marriage" that seems to be so critical to whether it's supported by a minority or a majority.
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The ruling definitely uses "marriage" - likely because that's what the law current uses as its language, rather than with any intent on the part of the Court other than reflecting the wording of the law.
The nature of the beast, as it were, is that there is probably no functional difference between how the ruling uses this term and how everyone else uses the term "civil union" casually. Whether the Democrats can defend this view and convince people, versus the Republicans' ability to hammer away at that large 30% caught in the middle of a semantic crossfire, will be fascinating.
Ultimately, though, I can't see the relatively laissez-faire population of the state, which is surprisingly heading Libertarian on the whole, getting all that riled up over what are effectively religious connotations, especially with civil rights kind of in "vogue" among semi-urban and suburban populations.
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Originally Posted by UGAalum94
Are homosexuals a protected class in Iowa? [ETA: I guess this seems silly after this ruling because clearly they are now but was there precedence for that position in Iowa before this ruling? EATA: Nevermind, I looked and they were before this case. I basically take back what I said about the Iowa court being out in front. The ruling seems pretty in keeping with the laws people in Iowa already passed, even if they didn't realize they would extend to SSM.]
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Yeah, exactly - reasonable people can certainly disagree over terminology or whatever, but the ruling is so straight-forward it's astounding. Common sense, almost.