Gay Marriage in Iowa

The gay marriage fight has moved this month from California to Iowa. Last year, Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act, a decade old law which defines marriage as between a man and a woman, was ruled to violate the state constitutional rights of equal protection and due process. Less than 9 hours later, an appeal was filed. During that time, one couple managed to apply for and receive a marriage license. A hearing will now take place before the Iowa State Supreme Court this coming Tuesday, December 9th.

Iowa could become the third state to allow marriage between same-sex partners, following the lead of Connecticut and Massachusetts. Currently, there is a debate on an earlier post about this topic. I recently listened to an interview on Air America (evil liberals!) about the best strategy for progressing gay marriage. Basically, there are currently three types of people on this subject. Pro-gay people, who recognize that homosexual relations do not destroy the fabric of the universe and are a beautiful thing. Middle-of-the-road people, (mid-gay) people, who recognize that homosexual relations do not destroy the universe but find it icky. And anti-gay people, who believe that homosexual relations will destroy the fabric of the universe.

In my aforementioned post, I’ve been debating a anti-gay person, who believes that homosexuals “could be judged as mentally ill or criminal“. These types of people hate gays, and cannot be reasoned with or convinced to support gay marriage. Why they hate gay people is irrelevant. Maybe they are secretly gay. Maybe they are straight but get hot and bothered by Tom Brady (don’t we all), and have trouble dealing with it. Maybe they just need somebody to hate and don’t follow sports, so they lack that healthy release (I hate the 49ers SOOO much). It’s not important. What’s important is that these people should simply be viewed as dinosaurs, and that the gay rights movement needs to focus on the “mid-gay” people.

The “mid-gay” people, are those who think gay people should be allowed to be gay, just not get married and adopt kids. They are fine with people doing whatever they want behind close doors, but they don’t want them displaying their gayness and reminding that them that they too find Tom Brady attractive (seriously, admit it, you know you think he’s hot). They can to be convinced, and need to be shown that gay marriage IS a civil rights issue. Because that what this is really about: civil rights, freedom, and individual liberties.