“When the family collapses, it is the children that are usually damaged.
When it happens on a massive scale, the community itself is crippled.”
- Lyndon B. Johnson
History:
In 1993, the Hawaii Supreme Court declared that denying a marriage license to “couples” of the same sex violated the equal protection clause of the state Constitution. The Hawaii legislature acted quickly to correct the error of the court, and in 1994, passed a statute to specifically define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Subsequently, Hawaii also approved a constitutional amendment affirming the same definition. Representative Terrance W.H. Tom, the Democrat who chaired the House Judiciary Committee, said at the time, ''The judicial branch of government has at this point refused to recognize this legislative policy and continues to act on a path which if left unchecked will represent a very dangerous departure in our democratic tradition.''
By tipping their hand in Hawaii, homosexual activists sent a signal to the entire country that they intended to force homosexual “marriage” on the country one state at a time, not through the legislative process, but through their willing partners in the judicial branch. This course of action would both create a so-called civil right to homosexual marriage, and solidify the unconstitutional idea of judicial supremacy. Across the country, legislative bodies began to take proactive measures to defend marriage and to preserve the constitutional separation of powers.
In 1998, the Iowa Legislature passed the Defense of Marriage Act. Since that time, Iowa Code section 595.2 has read, “Only a marriage between a male and female is valid.” To this date, the language defining marriage has not been revoked or amended by the Legislature.
In 2003, District Court Judge Jeffrey Neary granted a divorce to a lesbian couple in Sioux City. Even though this decision recognized a “marriage” that did not exist, and was a clear violation of Iowa law, in 2005 the Iowa Supreme Court upheld Judge Neary’s opinion. That sent a signal to homosexual activists and lawyers that the time was right to begin a frontal assault on marriage in Iowa.
In March 2005, the Iowa House of Representatives voted in support of a constitutional amendment confirming marriage as only between a male and a female. The House vote provided an indication of the legislative support for the people of Iowa to have a chance to vote on a constitutional amendment.
Later, in 2005, six carefully selected homosexual couples representing several geographic regions of Iowa came to Polk County to apply for a marriage license. Because the law in Iowa is clear, their request was denied.
In December 2005, having carefully selected the plaintiffs, and then having carefully selected a county where the case was most likely to go before a homosexual friendly judge, the New York-based homosexual activist law firm, Lambda Legal, filed a case in Polk County challenging Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act.
In August 2007, Polk County District Judge Robert Hanson granted the request of Lambda Legal and ruled that Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional. Even though he stayed his decision pending an appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court, one homosexual “marriage” was performed immediately following the pronouncement of the opinion.
On April 3, 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld Judge Hanson’s opinion, and demanded that the 99 Iowa County Recorders begin issuing homosexual “marriage” licenses.
On April 15, 2009, commenting in the Washington Post, Camilla Taylor, a Chicago-based lawyer for Lambda Legal, admitted that she had been active in Iowa for seven years laying the groundwork to manipulate the system in Iowa to force homosexual marriage on the state. This was the first public admission by a homosexual activist that they had been systematically using the system in Iowa since before the lesbian “divorce” case came to District Court Judge, Neary.