Iowa voters have expressed their opposition to court-mandated same-sex "marriage" in their state by firing three of the state Supreme Court justices who created the new "right."

Now those who campaigned for voters to reject Marsha Ternus, David Baker and Michael Streit say they are hoping that the message will reverberate across the country and other judges will begin reining in their activism.

"The people have spoken. Time for the elitist judges to understand there is a constitution and that government is owned by the people," wrote Dennis S. in a forum at the Topix.com website.

Pastor Cary Gordon of Cornerstorne World Outreach in Sioux City was one of the pastors who coordinated a letter to churches asking them to speak out against homosexual "marriage."

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He told WND that the letter reminded pastors of their moral obligation to cry out against evil and address arrogance and injustice in the courts.

Hundreds of pastors responded, he said.

"There were Catholics, Methodists, Wesleyans, Baptists; the list just goes on and on. It was humbling to see all those who wanted to do [their] duty," he said.

The message from voters that resulted, the dismissal of the three justices up for retention votes, was "colossal," he said.

"The message is very clear," he said. "The left just doesn't understand their error. The worst talking point they have had throughout this is 'voting no is an abuse of the system.'"

Members of the Iowa Supreme Court who unanimously adopted same-sex 'marriage' for the state

But that's dishonest, he asserted, because the retention vote is part of the system.

"Citizens don't have to give a reason why they vote one way or another" he said. "The problem with the judges, we have remedied this morning."

He said the judges who change the law, and in the case in Iowa step into the role of the executive branch of government by issuing orders to counties regarding marriage licenses, are "truly elistist," he said.

He said he understands why progressive billionaire George Soros is traveling around giving millions of dollars to campaigns to remove voters from the process of picking and keeping judges.

"Euthanasia, the violation of property rights, the most egregious and barbaric ideas have come not from 'we the people,' but from elitist judges," he said.

Judge Roy Moore, the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who runs the Foundation for Moral Law, told WND that the Iowa justices rejected the will of the people and the law they adopted.

Their removal, he said, "is a tremendously overwhelming message to the rest of the nation, that judges can be held accountable," he said.

"This sends a message. Maybe judges won't be as complacent and as radically activist if they realize people will rise up," he said.

On the website for the Supreme Court, a statement from the three rejected justices blamed the people for not being supportive of "fair and impartial courts."

They took credit for "always adhering to the rule of law, making decisions fairly and impartially according to law, and faithfully upholding the constitution."

The statement continued, "We thank all of the Iowans who voted to retain judges around the state for another term. Your support shows that many of our citizens value fair and impartial courts. We also want to acknowledge and thank all the Iowans, from across the political spectrum and from different walks of life, who worked tirelessly over the past few months to defend Iowa's high-caliber court system against an unprecedented attack funded by out-of-state special interest groups.

"Iowa's merit selection system helps ensure that our judges base their decisions on the law and the Constitution and nothing else. Ultimately, however, the preservation of our fair and impartial courts will require more than the integrity and fortitude of individual judges; it will require the fervent and steadfast support of the people," they warned.

The three justices did not respond to WND requests left with the court asking for comment.

Moore noted that Iowa's Defense of Marriage Act, adopted by elected representatives of the people, specified one man and one woman marriages, so the justices actually were violating the law they were sworn to uphold. Moore noted that the original Iowa Constitution forbade "sodomy."

He noted the Iowa court's own opinion stated the justices could "protect constitutional rights … even when the rights have not yet been broadly accepted or at one time [were] unimagined."

"What they are saying is that they can give rights to individuals that were at one time unimagined. If that's not judicial activism…" he said. "What's to stop them from letting men marry their own daughters. Brothers marry sisters. A whole village becoming a marriage."

Former GOP candidate for governor Bob Vander Plaats, a spokesman for a grassroots group trying to oust the three judges, said the Iowa For Freedom campaign was launched because the decision was wrong.

"On April 3, 2009, this court did what it cannot do and God help this country and this state if we allow them to do it," he told the Cedar Falls Courier.

According to the Iowa Independent, U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, concluded that voters really have no choice but to reject the judges.

"Iowa law says that marriage is only between 'a male and a female,'" King said. "No judge can be allowed to remain on the bench who would turn thousands of years of law and human history on its head by discovering rights that 'were at one time unimagined' in our Constitution," he told the newspaper.

A Des Moines newspaper report said even before the election that the results would ripple beyond the  Iowa's borders.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington told the newspaper in an interview, "What you see happening here is a precedent being set, and other states will feel comfortable following it."

It was, according to the Sioux City Journal, former Iowa Supreme Court judge Mark McCormick who called those who oppose same-sex "marriage" and the imposition of that status by a court "the mob."

He told the newspaper, "But the campaign here is one that is an effort to try to intimidate judges, not just in Iowa, but everywhere; not to carry out their constitutional responsibilities but to defer to the mob or to what is perceived to be a majority view and not to make an unpopular decision. But we depend on our courts to make unpopular decisions. They protect us. Courts exist to protect individual rights. They do not exist necessarily to protect the interest of the majority from time to time."

To which Vander Plaats suggested of his fellow Iowans, "This isn't about the mob, this is about we, the people."

A similar fight also is going on in California. There, a homosexual federal judge who ruled that gender "no longer forms an essential part of marriage" struck down the state's voter-approved Proposition 8 constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between one man and one woman only.

The issue now is before an appellate court.

Judge Vaughn Walker, who a short time after his decision announced he was quitting the bench, said:

• "Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians."

• "Rather, the exclusion exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage. That time has passed."

• "The gender of a child's parent is not a factor in a child's adjustment."

• "The evidence shows beyond any doubt that parents' genders are irrelevant to children’s developmental outcomes."

• "Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage; marriage under law is a union of equals."

• "Many of the purported interests identified by proponents are nothing more than a fear or unarticulated dislike of same-sex couples."

Proposition 8 was passed by voters in 2008. In his Aug. 4 decision, Walker declared it violates the rights of homosexuals under the federal Constitution.

Walker's decision had disregarded the terse warning contained in California Supreme Court Justice Marvin Baxter's dissenting opinion in a 2008 case on same-sex "marriage." That case saw same-sex "marriage" imposed by judicial fiat on the state, a result that was reversed by the Prop 8 vote.

Baxter had warned of the "legal jujitsu" required to establish same-sex "marriage" by court order.

"The bans on incestuous and polygamous marriages are ancient and deeprooted, and, as the majority suggests, they are supported by strong considerations of social policy," Baxter warned in his dissent. "Our society abhors such relationships, and the notion that our laws could not forever prohibit them seems preposterous. Yet here, the majority overturns, in abrupt fashion, an initiative statute confirming the equally deeprooted assumption that marriage is a union of partners of the opposite sex. The majority does so by relying on its own assessment of contemporary community values, and by inserting in our Constitution an expanded definition of the right to marry that contravenes express statutory law.

"Who can say that, in 10, 15 or 20 years, an activist court might not rely on the majority's analysis to conclude, on the basis of a perceived evolution in community values, that the laws prohibiting polygamous and incestuous marriages were no longer constitutionally justified?" Baxter wrote.

Nov. 3, 2010

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