A Person would have had to be hiding under a rock to have missed the ongoing debate over gay marriage. I would like to give you a perspective from someone who has the following qualifications:
- I've been married myself for almost 30 years.
- I've been the attorney for one party or the other in a divorce for over a thousand divorces over 31 years.
- I've represented people who weren't married but who had children together or who had accumulated property and debts and wanted to part ways, needing to define their relationship with the children and divide the property and debts, on countless occasions.
- I've also represented people who have had common law marriages. Iowa is one of the few states recognizing this form or marriage. There is no common law divorce.
From my experience, I have come to believe the following: Marriage is a good thing. It creates a legal framework for protection and raising children and for the ownership of property. It gives the parties financial benefit and security through insurance, health care, tax advantages, and pension benefits and rights. It has immeasurable intangible benefits as well.
Marriage may be a moral question to many, but that question is answered differently by each moral soul involved. Certainly each church wedding carries with it the moral belief of the particular faith involved, but the civil ceremony standing by itself carries no dogma at all. Indeed, the hand of the state, except for its noted approval, is entirely removed from the union in the instance of common law marriage.
My conclusion is that the moral requirements that some want to interject into marriage and our laws and constitution would not only be limitless, but meaningless. One doesn't have to conform to any person's particular moral belief to become married in this state. One does have to assume the responsibilities that our laws set forth. Likewise, to be able to have the rights and benefits that these laws provide, one does not have to abide by a particular code of conduct other than that provided by our laws and constitution.
Finally, I have two remarks, I do not believe that someone's sexual orientation should prevent the person from enjoying the rights and privileges of marriage; nor should it deprive the person's partner and children from the protections that our laws can provide. In my years of representing divorcing parties, I have seen the worst of the worst in people divorcing. I do not think that heterosexuals have a monopoly on good behavior and moral conduct.
It takes courage to be a lawyer, especially to be a judge. I happen to think that Judge Robert Hanson is a thoughtful, intelligent, and fair man. It is not up to me to rule on his decision concerning equal protection and marriage. It is up to me, and all of us in the legal profession, to uphold judicial integrity and not criticize judges unfairly in public forums.