Iowa Clerks Scorn Homobigotry

Kudos to the Iowa courts for resisting the efforts of a bigoted legislative minority to resist granting equal status before the law to homosexual couples seeking to marry: for now, in that corn-covered state, gay marriage is decidedly constitutional. Kudos also to the Iowa county recorders who are showing backbone and integrity by resisting the pressure homobigot lawmakers are placing on them to refuse to process marriage licenses for gay couples. According to an article in the Des Moines Register, the clerk of Republican Rep. Kent Sorenson called at least one clerk's office to lay a little pressure down. One imagines the conversation thusly:

Homobigot Clerk: "Them gays wants to fornicate on the courthouse law, and get your kids to watch."
County Clerk: "I think they just want to get married."
Homobigot Clerk: "You've been brainwashed by the godless logic of an activist Communist judiciary!"
County Clerk: "It's my job. Why are you bothering me?"
Homobigot Clerk: (hangs up phone, scours self with holy water and Brillo pads, prays for the strength to resist the urge to order a homosexual hooker... again.)

This is the office of the same Sorenson who told the press that he plans to fight to defend the definition of marriage as between 1 man and 1 woman. This, he announced to the world on Twitter -- twit politics for the new era.

Put briefly: the homobigots wanted to disallow gay marriage; the courts squashed their religiously-motivated politicking; the homobigots asked county clerk to implement prejudice as an 'act of conscience'; state officials squashed the hate by issuing strict instructions that marriage licenses are to be issued regardless of clerks' beliefs. The score so far looks like Rational justice in Iowa: 2, Homobigotry: 0.

Sorenson told the press that he did not ask his staff to place the call. He clarified his belief that "she has to do her job. That’s up to her, the oath she took and what she feels she has to do.” What she FEELS she has to do? I hadn't realized that a government official's purview of duties is open to interpretation. The clerks who are repelling this sly pressure don't seem at all persuaded by the same line of thinking, as all their published statements indicate that they'll be discharging their duties as specified by law.

In the Register article, Johnson County Recorder Kim Painter calls the issue cut and dry. "Supreme Courts always have the final word as to the constitutionality of laws passed by the legislature — except in countries like Syria,” she wrote. “Personally, I don’t want to live in Syria, so I am abiding by the system of governance and laws in America.”