Let Us Vote Iowa - Talking Points

Talking Points Related to Same-Sex Marriage and the Iowa Marriage Amendment (IMA)
As you are talking with friends, co-workers, neighbors, and your legislators about this issue, keep these talking points central. Refer, also, to common responses from hesitant legislators as well as background information and frequently asked questions as you attempt to communicate the facts surrounding this issue as effectively as possible.

The Iowa Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is simple, settled, and overwhelmingly supported by Iowans. DOMA was passed unanimously in 1998 by the legislature, and the Iowa Supreme Court has no right to overturn law that was properly passed by the representatives the Iowa cititzens voted for.

The court failed to respect the law. The job of the legislature is to make law. The job of the Court is to interpret and enforce the law. Not make law. What the Supreme Court has done is unconstitutional!

Now it’s time for the Iowa Legislature to allow the people to vote on marriage as one man and one woman. Allowing people to vote is the basis of our civil society. We cannot allow our legislators to deny us the right to vote on marriage! Passing the IMA through the House and the Senate for the first time in 2009 will keep the possibility open for We the People of Iowa to vote on the IMA as soon as 2009. Failing to pass the IMA through the House and the Senate for the first time in 2009 will delay the possibility for the people of Iowa voting on the IMA until 2011 at the very earliest.

With same-sex marriage legalized in Iowa, Iowa will become the launch pad for same-sex marriage nationwide. Iowa’s marriage laws do not have a residency requirement. Therefore, if same-sex marriage is legalized in Iowa, same-sex couples from all over the nation will be able to come here, get married, and then go home and sue their home states for full recognition. Launching the future president of the United States from Iowa, by way of the Iowa Caucuses is a good thing; launching same-sex marriage from Iowa to the rest of the nation is not a good thing.

Senator Mike Gronstal and Representative Pat Murphy have the most influence on whether or not the IMA comes up for a vote before the full House and full Senate in 2009. Gronstal is the Senate Majority Leader and Murphy is the Speaker of the House. As the leaders of their parties in each chamber, they could get the IMA up for a vote if they wanted to. If it does not come up for a vote, a majority of the blame will rightly fall on them. Contacting them is worth your time, and so is asking your Senator and Representative to contact them on your behalf.

SHOULD SAME SEX “MARRIAGE” BE LEGAL?

a small sample of the key supports for opposing same-sex marriage

CHILDREN

Same-sex families always deny children either their mother or their father.
A loving and compassionate society always comes to the aid of motherless and fatherless children.
A loving and compassionate society never intentionally creates motherless or fatherless families, which is exactly what every same-sex home does.

“Same-sex family” is an untested social experiment that puts future generations at risk. No society should intentionally subject innocent kids to potentially harmful social experiments. Although some research indicates that children raised in same-sex homes turn out as well as children raised in heterosexual homes, there are good reasons to be skeptical of those research claims.1 For instance, many studies contain unrepresentative samples with missing or inadequate comparison groups, most research subjects volunteered for the studies and some participants were allowed to recruit other participants, and many studies wished to influence public policy from the outset in support of homosexual families. 2

STATE’S INTEREST

The State has an interest in incentivizing environments that produce the healthiest possible members of next generations.

Statistically, the healthiest members of next generations come from homes where there is one mom married to one dad. Therefore it is right of the State to use the promotive nature of law to incentivize these kind of environments that produce the healthiest children.3 While there are many kids growing up in homes that don’t meet this ideal standard, there is no justification for the State to intentionally promote still more households that provide less than the most healthy conditions for children by legalizing same-sex “marriage”.

CIVIL RIGHTS

Sexual orientation and sexual behavior are not immutable traits and should not be given civil right status.

Race and skin color, for example, are immutable traits. They are 100% determined by factors outside of any person’s willful control. Sexual orientation is not immutable, and sexual behavior involves a choice within a person’s control. Therefore, equality rights based on sexual orientation should not be viewed in the same way as equality rights based on race or skin color.

Liberal Democrat Jesse Jackson explains, “Gays were never called three-fifths of a person in the Constitution … and they did not require the Voting Rights Act to have the right to vote.”4

OTHER FORMS OF “MARRIAGE”

Where does it stop? If same-sex “marriage” is legalized, then polygamy and group “marriage” must be legalized, too.

Anyone who favors same-sex “marriage” on the basis of love (i.e. same-sex couples love each other just as much as opposite sex couples) must also, by the same reasoning, favor polygamy or group “marriage” (i.e. the love bisexuals have for more than one person is just as legitimate as the love two same-sex partners or two opposite sex partners have for one another). Because so many people, for good reasons, oppose polygamy or group “marriage” - including many same-sex “marriage” advocates - society shouldn’t embrace a redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples, either.

FREE SPEECH AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Same-sex “marriage” will further advance a threat against free speech and religious liberty through the promotion of hate crimes laws.

Hate crimes laws now threaten free speech and religious liberty worldwide and threaten those who speak out against homosexuality (and will threaten those who speak out against same-sex marriage where it is legalized). Hate crimes laws have the potential to shut down churches and send pastors to prison for simply speaking what they believe the Bible teaches about homosexuality and/or same-sex marriage.5

GENDER ROLES

Same-sex families imply that mother/father roles or husband/wife roles are not necessary for healthy families, and therefore, that gender itself is meaningless.

When a society adopts same-sex “marriage”, it is giving its stamp of approval to the idea that masculinity and femininity don’t matter. 6 Kids (and adults for that matter) shouldn’t have to have this dangerous idea foisted upon them. This idea’s consequences will not make us a stronger civilization but a weaker one.

1 http://www.citizenlink.org/pdfs/fosi/marriage/examining_research_on_ss_parenting.pdf

2 Robert Lerner, Ph.D., Althea Nagai, Ph.D. No Basis: What the Studies Don’t Tell Us About Same-Sex Parenting, Washington DC: Marriage Law Project/Ethics and Public Policy Center, 2001.

3 2008. Demographic Winter [Motion Picture], http://www.demographicwinter.com/index.html

4 Marcella Bombardieri, Boston Globe, “Jackson Wary of Same-Sex Rift,” Feb. 17, 2004

5 2007. Hate Crimes Laws: Censoring the Church and Silencing Christians [Motion Picture], http://www.

6 http://www.citizenlink.org/FOSI/marriage/ssuap/A000000984.cfm

Talking points from www.LetUsVoteIowa.com