Iowa judge's ruling in lesbian divorce case will stand

[leQ]

The Iowa Supreme Court today rejected a lawsuit by a group of conservative lawmakers and others to overturn a northwest Iowa district judge's ruling that dissolved a lesbian couple's out-of-state civil union.

The justices said the group had no legal standing to challenge the decree by Judge Jeffrey Neary and therefore no right to intervene.
...
"Iowa law has never permitted such unwarranted interference in other peoples' cases,” the argument continued. “Simply having an opinion does not suffice for standing."

--source
*giggle* a lot of repukes are eating crow right about now.

[Ysolde]

1. I'm confused by your first paragraph...

Do you mean that the Iowa Supreme Court would not let the ruling that dissolved the civil union stand? Or did they rule that it got dissolved? Not clear to me, sorry.

[Senior citizen]

2. I think the judge ruled to dissolve the union, but the pukes

wanted to force them to stay together. Very strange, if you ask me.

[Onlooker]

3. No, I think the issue was whether to recognize the civil union

If I remember correctly the concern from the right was that if the judge dissolved the union then he was recognizing it in the first place. The conservatives wanted to rule that the union had no legal standing so could not be legally dissolved.

[Ysolde]

4. Thanks.

That's really confusing. Geez! These folks still manage to leave me (of all folks!) speechless on a daily basis!

[Inland]

5. That would have to be right: this is important stuff.

The difference between married and not-married is that if married,the court has jurisdiction over the divorce, including an equitable distribution of assets, liabilities, alimony, etc.

If not married, then there's no equitable distribution.

I think this is very important. The first benefit of recognition of gay marriage is that a court prevents abuse of one or the other when the marriage ends. That may be counterintuitive, but the most important legal aspect of marriage is the divorce law. No divorce law, no protections from a partner cleaning out the accounts and locking the door.

Therefore as long as homosexuals are living together as spouses, then the law should recognize the facts on the ground to protect them in divorces. IMO.

[Zan_of_Texas]

6. In the case of marriage, it's pretty tough to have different states have

violently different laws.

If states want to have different laws about questions on their drivers' license tests, that's one thing. But to go to MA and get married, and then move to Iowa and suddenly be NOT married is pretty weird. Plus, no one has really figured out the consequences federally of being married -- will the feds accept the joint tax return? I don't know how that's playing out.

The real logistical nightmare of some of these marriage crazy quilt laws is that a same-sex couple can be married. Move to Iowa, say. Decide at some point to divorce. But, if Iowa doesn't recognize their marriage, will it recognize their divorce? If it didn't, would the couple have to move to, say, MA, establish residency again for some period of time, in order to get their divorce? Ack!

Glad the Iowa judge decided to recognize the marriage long enough to legally dissolve it.

We now have situations in some states where law allows a gay couple to adopt, but won't allow them to marry.

And, Bush is spending OUR TAXPAYER bucks on (faith-based) programs to encourage straight people to get married. Whether they want to or not.

Thank goodness the Right Wing doesn't interfere in personal lives.....