I could rail against rogue judges inflicting Political Correctness, and trampling the Constitution in the name of 'tolerance' and 'civil liberites'.

But I think it's more important to point out what this is really about - a leftist organized combination against religion.  The comments I read about this had politicians saying things like 'Hopefully other states will follow'.

This proves what they're really after.  With every state that 'legalizes' gay through a rogue court system that overthrows the will of the people, they hope to spread out to other states.  Until at last, any state that isn't pro-gay is 'forced' to accept it.

And then, it will be churches that don't accept 'gay' that will be forced to accept it.  After the prop 8 thing in California, I read the posts from angry gays who loudly screeched that it wouldn't be long before they 'forced' Mormons to conduct gay marriages in thier temples.

That, and the entire Iowa business proves undeniably that this was never about 'gay rights' or 'equality' or 'tolerance'.  It's about forcing religious groups and institutions to accept perversion - or else.  

Just read the comments.  'Here comes the God squad' said a Democrat, grinning at what he percieved as a loss for the GOP and Christianity.

They declared war against "Jesusland" in 2004.  This is just another one of their battles.

Here's a crucial paragraph from the opinion:

"The purpose of Iowa’s marriage law is to provide an institutional basis for defining the fundamental relational rights and responsibilities of persons in committed relationships. It also serves to recognize the status of the parties’ committed relationship. In this case, the court concluded, plaintiffs are similarly situated compared to heterosexual persons; they are in committed relationships and official recognition of their status provides an institutional basis for defining their fundamental relational rights and responsibilities."

First, the opinion declares that the couples are already in "committed" relationships. That, after all, is what makes committed same-sex couples equal to man-woman couples. They're both committed. But that's the problem. Commitment is used broadly. What did they commit to?

• If couples come to a state to recognize a commitment that already exists, then it follows that the state didn't structure that commitment.
• But if the government didn't structure the commitment in the first place, there's no legal standard by which to hold that one commitment is the same as another.
• This opinion implies that anyone can claim to commit to anything, and call it marriage - and the state is required to recognize it as a marriage.
• Therefore, it's impossible to claim any inequality. It's comparing apples and oranges.

To be clear, there's a difference between a marriage and an ordinary contract. When you draw up an ordinary contract, the state really doesn't care what you agreed to (assuming you haven't broken existing laws). All the state cares about is that you agreed to it. If you agreed to stand on a street corner with a shaved head, the court doesn't care whether it was a stupid thing to agree to. You agreed to it, so you can be sued and found liable if you break the agreement.

Marriage, on the other hand, isn't an open-ended agreement. For the state to recognize a marriage, the content of the agreement is specifically defined, not by the spouses, but by the state. The state defines what marriage means; in essence, they draw up the contract, and the spouses merely agree to it. Couples can't make that up on their own.

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There's so much subterfuge in this opinion that we could go on for hours. For instance, the court claims that a key issue is the raising of children. But they conveniently skip over the idea that marriage has anything to do with the bearing of children. For someone to claim that same-sex couples can raise children, they have to skip over the fact that someone outside the marriage is necessary to conceive the children. Does it make sense to justify a marriage on the grounds that someone outside the marriage can participate in conceiving the children?

What about raising children from previous marriages? Does it make sense to justify a permanent contract (which marriage is) by depending on a previous broken contract?

What about children conceived outside of marriage? And that's the central problem. The idea of same-sex marriage inevitable depends on separating the conception of children from it, thereby denying the exclusivity of marriage.

the jubilant reaction of gay marriage activists

 I've spent the morning being disgusted (yet unsurprised) to witness so many of them spewing hatred and bigotry toward Christians, married heterosexual couples with families, and the elderly while they "celebrate" their "victory over hatred and bigotry."  So Lorentzen and the AP pretending the non-jubilant don't exist seems like a step up to me.

Hurray for Iowa!  Welcome to the club.

Who's next?

A victory for the American people.