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Old 17th April 2009, 09:55 AM   #136
Brown
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Originally Posted by pgwenthold View Post
Judge may not have advocated the executive order, but I know she did a phone campaign, maybe to push the "let us vote" thing.


My in-laws got a recorded message call from Judge calling for action of some sort.
This doesn't sound like something Patty would do, either personally or wearing her Lt. Gov. hat. One wonders whether someone is running a phone campaign falsely attributing the sponsor.

According to the Des Moines Register, an Assistant Attorney General authored a notice to all county recorders: "All county recorders in the state of Iowa are required to comply with the Varnum decision … and to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples in the same manner as licenses issued to opposite gender applicants."

The current tactic-of-the-day is
Quote:
[Republican Sen. Merlin] Bartz and other Republicans are pushing for a "conscience clause" that would allow county recorders to opt out of issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples if their religion is opposed to gay marriage.
Discussion about this proposal has been at roughly the level of second-graders arguing about who is and who is not a poopy-head, although second-graders tend to be a bit more articulate. In the end, a state senator put some more careful thoughts into this statement:
Quote:
Well, here's the crazy part of it. For example, what if a county recorder is morally opposed to mixed race marriages? You know it used to be illegal under Iowa law for mixed race marriages. Well what if you were a county recorder at that time. Does Senator Bartz think they should be able to say 'no' to a mixed race couple?

What about divorced Iowans? Some religions believe it should be 'one man, one woman, one time.' And under the Bartz approach, your county recorder would be able to say: 'No, I'm a Catholic and you don’t get to have a second marriage. You had your one.'

Under the Bartz approach if your county recorder didn’t think Catholics should marry Baptists, that would be the law in your county. That’s just so wrong.

In Iowa, everyone is equal under the law. County recorders don’t get to decide for themselves which laws they will follow and which they won’t.
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