Tradition can never justify discrimination

First, a reply to my friend and debate partner. Yes, both houses of the Iowa legislature are heavily Democratic.

I downloaded the 6 page summary of the Iowa gay marriage case. Much of it reads the same way as the Calif. ruling almost a year ago. A summary of the summary:

Different from Calif., Iowa declares the case to require intermediate (rather than strict) scrutiny. In intermediate scrutiny cases, government must show a classification is required for an important government objective. This type of scrutiny is used when a group is classified by some trait that is both immutable and brings on discrimination, yet the trait allows the individual to contribute to society. Furthermore, the members of the group do not have enough political power to bring about change on their own. By immutable it means a trait that is so integral to a person's identity that it would be abhorrent for the government to penalize a person for refusing to change it. Good to see that sexual orientation is seen by the court as central and unchanging. Another immutable trait is religion.

The County -- the ones who refused a marriage license to a gay couple -- said their reasons for denying the license were (1) tradition, (2) promoting an optimal environment for children, (3) promoting procreation, (4) promoting stability in straight relationships, (5) preserving state resources, and (6) preserving the sanctity of marriage. You have heard all these before -- many times -- and usually in a more (ahem) *colorful* style. They are the Fundie's talking points on marriage.

The job of the court is to see if any of them have any validity as an important government objective.

1. Requiring the state to preserve tradition is circular reasoning -- restricting marriage to straights accomplishes the government's objective of restricting marriage to straights. In addition, tradition can never justify discrimination.

2. A straight couple may indeed be an optimal environment for raising children but the definition of optimal cannot rest only on sexual orientation. If you insist on optimal your law must exclude child abusers, those who neglect their kids, and violent felons. Refusing to marry gays does not ban gay couples from raising children. The restriction does not show how banning gay parents helps the kids of straight parents but does show harm to kids of gay parents. Thus the reason is not substantiated.

3. The exclusion of gay marriage will not result in more procreation (I'm of the opinion we have too much procreation as it is). Unless the lack of gay marriage is supposed to cause gays to become straight in order to procreate and no evidence supports that outcome.

4. Excluding gays from civil marriage will not make straight marriages more stable.

5. Yes, state government offers benefits to marriage and those benefits cost the state money. However, the cost of those benefits will be saved no matter which group (blondes?) is denied marriage. Thus, this is not a reason for denying it to gays.

6. Yes, some religions claim that straight marriage is sacred and gay marriage cannot be. However, other religions claim that both are equally sacred. Government cannot resolve this debate and must avoid it. Thus, the justices are only ruling on the law, which states "marriage is a civil contract."

Therefore, the state cannot justify denying equal protection.