I wish I had written Varnum versus Brien. I’m jealous that I wasn’t the author because I would not be sitting on the sidelines taking all those sucker punches from Vander Platts and King Terry. King-to-be- Branstad and Prince Vander Platts have an aura of legitimacy, but that’s it. By their words, the anti-gay vote proved that the Iowa Supreme Court’s Varnum Decision was the only right and just thing to do. The agenda advanced by the anti-gay movement is right out of the history books. Just read the poem by Martin Niemoller from his internment by the Germans in a Nazi concentration camp.

They came first for the Communists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Now consider the discrimination gays and lesbians encounter in everyday life. Are they not as powerless as the Jews were under the German Reich?

Vander Platts, Terry Branstad and Sarah Palin Are Purposefully Being Intellectually Dishonest for Political Gain – The worst kind of greed there is.

Like Palin, Vander Plaats’ group proved the point of the power of the equal protection clause that underpins the Varnum decision. The fact that they did prove the point is one of the ironies of today’s political debate. Like Palin those trying to advance the use of separation of powers to neuter the equal protection clause, do so by bastardizing the very nature of the reason we have an equal protection clause in the Constitution.

The Varnum equal rights decision turns on a constitutional point of law that protects minorities who are being subjected to traditional, deep-seated discrimination (hatred) that advances no legitimate governmental interest. So when our own governor-elect, a lawyer, advocates the State ignore deep seated discrimination against a minority group, he proves that power of the executive branch must be checked by the judicial branch. To argue that Varnum disrespects the separation clause is tantamount to one of two things; either stupidity or using the power of the State for lawless based action.

If you want to know what I’m talking about consider that what the three Iowa Supreme Court Justices are going through is no different than what gays and lesbians have put up with their entire lives. To them this is probably a rerun of a long running not so pleasant journey. If you can’t appreciate the complexity of being gay in a straight society, then just trying living as a minority – pick one the list is pretty long. If you’re white go stand in an African market in Arusha, Tanzania with 600 blacks. If that doesn’t impress upon you what it’s like to be a minority as the only white person in a sea of black faces then nothing can.

However, national minority can be theoretically (not legally) defined as a group of people within a given national state:

• which is numerically smaller than the rest of population of the state or a part of the state
• which is not in a dominant position
• which has culture, language, religion, race etc. distinct from that of the rest of the population
• whose members have a will to preserve their specificity
• whose members are citizens of the state where they have the status of a minority.
• which have a long-term presence on the territory where it has lived.

Face facts gays and lesbians are a minority. There is a long history of deep seated discrimination against them by the government officials that are supposed to be protecting them. Inaction and indifference is just another form of active discrimination. The same government, to which they pay taxes, works against them through the Iowa legislature to poison the well from which gay/lesbian citizens drink their civil rights. We straights get champagne while they get to drink from Jim Jones Jonestown Kool-Aid stand.

And that’s one of the reasons why our founding fathers added the equal protection clause. Our founding fathers knew the effects of a different form of slavery, but enslaved nonetheless. To borrow Terry Branstad’s line: “I want to hear that people respect the genius of our founding fathers in this state and this country when they devised a system with clear separation of powers and recognizes that the powers of the judiciary are restricted. …” The rest of his statement is cacophony.

It’s a slippery slope from which Vander Plaats agues his point for the sake of relevancy and Branstad seeks to become the Fuhrer.

They came first for the gays,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't gay.

Then they came for the blacks,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't black.

Then they came for the women,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a woman.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

What Terry advocates is for the voters to not respect the separation of powers and to give him the power to discriminate against those traditionally selected for slighting. Vander Plaats asks for the right to preselect candidates for judicial office based on religious belief. Next he’ll be advocating for non-lawyers to be judges of what the law states. Then we will no longer be a society of law but one of disorder. What together they advocate is to pack the Court and the judicial nomination committee with narrow mindedness that turns a blind eye to the equal protection clause for the sole purpose of wasting gays and lesbians. If that’s not the exact point of Varnum then I don’t know what is.

But this goes further back into a dark place in history that I’d rather not think about.  By misquoting the context of history as Branstad does he’s being intellectually dishonest and the Governor-elect puts himself in the same league as Sara Palin and Adolph Hitler. By their words and actions they prove the terrible myth of organized society – that everything the majority decides is right. If that were true blacks would still be in schools without textbooks, woman would not be property owners, every man would own at least one woman and they would have you believing that the crucifixion of Christ is legal and therefore must be just. Remember all that is just is not necessarily legal. And all that is legal is not necessarily just. Time marches us on to a better way. 

All I can say to the Justices and Judges of Iowa is don’t back down and don’t be intimidated. Dare to disturb the universe with doing that which is just. Remember the Iowa judiciary does have a brand; it’s the Iowa Constitution. Like our founding fathers Justices Ternus, Streit and Baker are a symbol of what is right and just under law. The likes of Vander Platts, Branstad and Palin stand for an abuse of power that imprisons its people for the sake of their own insecurities.

If you disagree then I ask you to consider the killing of six million Jews under the Third Reich was legal under German law. The killing of Christ was “legal” to the Romans. Sitting blacks in the back of the bus was then legal. Woman being unfit to hold legal title to property was at one time legal. Enslaving men and women was legal. Not all that is legal is right. A society lives and dies by the way it treats those minority groups with little power and influence. It’s up to the majority to be just. Today you are in power, but what about tomorrow when you may be, for whatever reason, in the minority?

And so I ask how it is I’m a member of the Iowa Republican Party?