Iowa Supreme Court Legalizes Same-Sex "Marriage"

On Friday, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously struck down as unconstitutional that state’s marriage law. Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act is similar to North Carolina’s; it defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman, the definition that has existed throughout the state’s history.

Friday’s ruling by the Iowa Supreme Court highlights the urgent need in North Carolina to pass a state constitutional amendment to protect marriage.

The Iowa court’s activist decision overrules the will of the people and redefines marriage. If they can do that in the Heartland, it can happen here in North Carolina.

The court went out of its way to dismiss long-held evidence from the social sciences, history and major religious tenets, that children fare best in an intact, monogamous family, headed by a mother and father. It even went so far as to make actual findings of fact that parenting by same-sex parents is equal to parenting by a biological mother and father, completely without evidence to back up those findings.

This ruling is a wake-up call for North Carolina. Protecting marriage must now be front and center for North Carolina lawmakers. Without a state constitutional amendment, we are but one case away from radically changing marriage law against the will of the people and their elected representatives.

Just as in Iowa, North Carolina overwhelmingly passed a state Defense of Marriage Act more than a decade ago, but it remains vulnerable to the whims of activist judges without explicit language in our state constitution defining marriage between only a man and a woman.

Unlike most of the 30 other states that have amended their constitutions in recent years, North Carolina does not have the option of forcing the issue to the ballot by an initiative petition of the people. Our Constitution requires that we pass a bill in the General Assembly by a 3/5 majority vote that will allow the people the opportunity to vote on the Amendment on the ballot. Somewhere between 73% and 76% of voters in the state favor the passage of a Marriage Protection Amendment. Our legislators must respond to the will of the people on this issue or be replaced.

North Carolina citizens have no say in what marriage will mean in the future unless Pennsylvania legislators act now to pass a Marriage Protection Amendment — before it’s too late.