Sunday, April 26, 2009

Iowa Judge Refuses all Marriages


District Magistrate Francis Honrath, a judge in Iowa, has stated that he will not be marrying anyone in light of that state's recent decision to allow same-sex couples to wed.

From KSFY (ignore the poorly written story):

"It should have gone to a public vote and it never would have passed. I'll guarantee you it never would have passed," said Dick Snyders who opposes same-sex marriage.
Dick Snyders lives in Larchwood the same town as Third District Magistrate Francis Honrath who said in the Des moines Register "the supreme court ruling had something to do with it, but the truth is it's not just same-sex marriage i had problems with."

Honrath, has served as a magistrate in Lyon County since 1997 and has 7 children of his own. In Iowa, a judge can't agree to conduct marriages for opposite-sex couples but refuse gay couples without facing disciplinary action. So as long as Honrath doesn't marry anyone at all, he won't face any disciplinary action.
This may be the best thing to happen to the marriage fight in Iowa ever. After all, once you start removing people's privilege, they start to remember that the world isn't laid out on a red carpet for everyone else.

Meanwhile, Dick Snyders (resisting snarky comment on the name) is completely uninformed. It wasn't until 1994 that Gallup found universal approval of interracial marriage... so I seriously doubt "public opinion" is the best way to gauge the appropriateness of any action.

Besides, isn't that one of the rolls of the courts -- to guard against the tyranny of the majority?

2 comments:

Cincinnati NAMjA said...

How legal is this?

Sarah Spring said...

This post rocks - a. the gallup link is awesome for a paper I'm writing and b. totally makes me laugh about living in Iowa...