Hooray for Iowa!

[inbhirnis]

Their Supreme Court just ruled in favor of same sex marriage.

Now - I wonder if Iowa is also hampered by a political system where a popular vote of 50%+1 vote can strip these newly won rights away?

Comments

[bear-left.livejournal.com]

I gather it's much harder to repeal than in CA - what I think I saw was a repeal would have to pass the state legislature in two consecutive sessions & then go to a referendum (which means 2012 at the earliest).

[inbhirnis.livejournal.com]

Ah - a slightly more sane method than here. Of course, the issue of whether our state legislature should have had the opportunity to speak on Prop 8, rather than it going straight to a popular vote ('Revision' vs. 'Amendment') is precisely the issue before our Supreme Court. And that argument is, in all likelihood, going to go down in flames.

[urbear]

That's very similar to MA's amendment process. We have that to thank for the state of gay marriage in MA today... the amendment process is slow and requires a great deal of support in the legislature. It never got as far as a referendum, and even if it had, it would have been long enough after the start of gay marriage that most of the shock would have died down.

I don't get CA's rules. A constitution should not be that easy to change.

[furrbear.livejournal.com]

Yeah, CA's Constitution will start to look like TX's; but for a different reason - In TX, damn near any and everything takes a Constitutional Amendment.

[inbhirnis.livejournal.com]

It's ridiculous here - it takes 2/3 to approve a tax increase, but it only takes 50%+1 to take someone's rights away...

[inbhirnis.livejournal.com]

The Obama Administration's response (http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/10230/breaking-white-house-response-to-iowa-ruling) is not very bold at all - 'crap' is the word that comes to mind.

[bear-left.livejournal.com]

Even the later clarification was pretty underwhelming.