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, see Bradwell v. Illinois, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 130, 139, 21 L. Ed. 442, 445 (1873), and twenty-five years before the United States Supreme Court affirmed the refusal of the Commonwealth of Virginia to admit women into the practice of law, see Ex parte Lockwood, 154 U.S. 116, 118, 14 S. Ct. 1082, 1083, 38 L. Ed. 929, 930 (1894). In each of those instances, our state approached a fork in the road toward fulfillment of our constitution's ideals and reaffirmed the "absolute equality of all" persons before the law as "the very foundation principle of our government." See Coger, 37 Iowa at 153.

This is you, writing in your blog:

We must accept Christ and take upon us his name.5 One of the greatest joys is found in the family, which is one reason we are commanded to multiply and replenish the Earth.

I don't believe your reasons for being with a woman have anything to do with the desires of your heart (since you say you are gay), but with your beliefs that God wants you to marry a woman.

I wish they could have just said that anyone should be able to marry anyone they chose rather than saying I am incapable of loving my wife.

The Iowa supreme Court said no such thing. People love a lot of things, chocolate, pets, alcohol etc. And many times people also substitute those things for the desire of their hearts.

You absolutely have the right to marry whoever you want. That's not what this is about. This is about your beliefs and the covert way you go about to try and influence the way society treats gays and the way gays think about themselves.

I know the language well from my years in the evangelical movement and it is obvious to me you believe being gay is a sin. I find this very sad.

I suggest you write honestly next time.

Opponents have long argued that allowing gay marriage would erode the institution. Some Iowa lawmakers, mostly Republicans, attempted last year to launch a constitutional amendment to specifically prohibit same-sex marriage.

Such a change would require approval in consecutive legislative sessions and a public vote, which means a ban would could not be put in place until at least 2012 unless lawmakers take up the issue in the next few weeks.

Link

By then, it will be....and we care because?