Iowa For Freedom’s Bob Vander Plaats really thought he was on to something when he mentioned the Emancipation Proclamation’s role in freeing slaves, as part of a suggestion that the Iowa court shouldn’t play a role in the modern conversation surrounding same-sex marriage. It’s just too bad he completely forgot about In Re the Matter of Ralph, THE VERY FIRST CASE THE IOWA STATE SUPREME COURT EVER TOOK ON!, wherein the court rejected slavery decades before Dred Scott, the end of the Civil War, Emancipation, or the 13th Amendment:
Look, we would all be THRILLED with an Executive Order leading to an eventual change in federal marriage law. Please. Bring it on. We’ll go write children’s books or something.
But in the meantime, the Iowa state Supreme Court has had both the foresight and the fortitude to bring down unconstitutional marriage discrimination in that state. Foresight that doesn’t break from tradition, but rather carries it on.
***
*Oh and by the way: That “host of the national news organization” that said he was confused about what happened in Iowa? Yea, that was Mike Huckabee on his eponymous Fox News show! Vander Plaats fully identified the host as Huckaee when he appeared on Bryan Fischer’s AFA radio show. So let’s not act like this was a mere “news host,” Mr. Vander Plaats!
