Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Marriage Amendment Introduced In Iowa House

The anti-marriage equality faction has fired its opening salvo.

The Iowa Independent reports:
State Reps. Dwayne Alons, R-Hull, and Dolores Mertz, D-Ottosen, have proposed a bill to amend Iowa’s Constitution and define marriage as being between a man and a woman.

House Joint Resolution 6 was introduced Friday as funnel week was coming to a close. It has little chance of coming up for debate this session. It was introduced, Alons said, in response to Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, introducing a bill making Iowa’s marriage laws gender neutral by removing the words “husband” and “wife” and replacing them with “spouse.”

Continue reading.

These guys are going to pop like firecrackers if the Iowa Supreme Court rules in favor of gay marriage. But I wonder what they'd do if the ruling were only to require civil unions that had all the same legal consequences as marriage, merely lacking the word itself. For now, we're all just waiting on the justices. The ball is in their court.

Update:

An anonymous commenter on this post wrote the following:
I think "Iowa Straight Guerrilla Happy Hour" is the official name of the anti-marriage equality faction.

Read it a second time, slowly. You'll get the idea eventually.

Here's my response:
You're clearly confused about the purpose of the Iowa City Guerrilla Queer Bar. The idea isn't segregation, it's integration. If we wanted to be off by ourselves, we'd stay in the gay bar.

The most ridiculous aspect of people attacking my views on gay issues is that I'm actually advocating something that conservatives should embrace: the end of an isolated gay subculture. I have exactly one thing in common with most gay people: the fact that I am pretty much exclusively attracted to members of my own sex. This ought not be a political issue. I just want to live my life as a fully equal member of society.

Most people who meet me would never guess that I'm gay unless I tell them. I'm not trying to be special or different. The extent to which I am different from the majority of men (who are heterosexual) shouldn't make the least bit of difference to the vast majority of the people I interact with.

But you know what? I can't get married. And I put myself at risk of being assaulted if I kiss a guy I'm out on a date with at the wrong bar. So I advocate for marriage equality and take part in a group that works to make gays and lesbians feel more comfortable being themselves in mainstream public places.

I don't care if people think being gay is wrong. I only care how people act. And discriminating against people based on their sexual orientation just isn't acceptable. Not anymore.

What's so difficult about treating other people the way you'd want to be treated anyway? A certain thinker who most Americans claim to hold in high regard seems to have thought that doing so was pretty important.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think "Iowa Straight Guerrilla Happy Hour" is the official name of the anti-marriage equality faction.

Read it a second time, slowly. You'll get the idea eventually.

Rev. Christopher J. Patton said...

You're clearly confused about the purpose of the Iowa City Guerrilla Queer Bar. The idea isn't segregation, it's integration. If we wanted to be off by ourselves, we'd stay in the gay bar.

The most ridiculous aspect of people attacking my views on gay issues is that I'm actually advocating something that conservatives should embrace: the end of an isolated gay subculture. I have exactly one thing in common with most gay people: the fact that I am pretty much exclusively attracted to members of my own sex. This ought not be a political issue. I just want to live my life as a fully equal member of society.

Most people who meet me would never guess that I'm gay unless I tell them. I'm not trying to be special or different. The extent to which I am different from the majority of men (who are heterosexual) shouldn't make the least bit of difference to the vast majority of the people I interact with.

But you know what? I can't get married. And I put myself at risk of being assaulted if I kiss a guy I'm out on a date with at the wrong bar. So I advocate for marriage equality and take part in a group that works to make gays and lesbians feel more comfortable being themselves in mainstream public places.

I don't care if people think being gay is wrong. I only care how people act. And discriminating against people based on their sexual orientation just isn't acceptable. Not anymore.

What's so difficult about treating other people the way you'd want to be treated anyway? A certain thinker who most Americans claim to hold in high regard seems to have thought that doing so was pretty important.

Anonymous said...

So sorry, that wasn't the answer we were looking for. Perhaps if you had taken more than 26 minutes to consider my comment, instead of rushing to judgment as always, and digressing into inconsequential exploration of your private sexual insecurities, you might have found your way to the fruit of my analogy. But thanks for playing!