 Todd DormanTodd Dorman is a columnist for The Gazette. His blog has been bringing smiles to readers' faces since November 2007. |
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Punditry fail — Wiggins Retained
Occasionally, I’m glad to be wrong.
I figured Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins would lose his spot on the Iowa Supreme Court Tuesday. After watching what happened in 2010, I wasn’t optimistic.
But it was a different year and and a different outcome. Turns out Wiggins won retention by a fairly decent margin. I should have had more faith in the voters.
I should have had more faith that voters would get it this time, that more of them would understand the importance of the retention issue and see through the warmed over distortions being served up yet again by the usual suspects. His opponents focused their campaign solely on Wiggins’ role in the unanimous 2009 ruling striking down Iowa’s ban on same-sex marriage. So for those of us who support that ruling and the marriage equality it yielded, it’s a nice victory.
I’ll have to look at the numbers in the light of day to get a better sense of what happened. And with control of the Iowa Senate still not determined, the story of Iowa’s marriage future remains incomplete.
Maryland and Maine approved measures making same-sex marriage legal, while a ballot measure in Washington had a lead late into the night. The vote on a measure to ban same-sex marriage in Minnesota is still too close to call at this hour, although it appears to be lacking the support needed for passage. A president who came out in favor of equality won re-election. We may be seeing a historic turning point. Stay tuned.
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Bob VanderPlatts et al lost on this because the Save Western Civilization From The Pervert Hoards crowd forgot exactly how conservative Iowans are, by temperament, not ideology.
Change is bad and when VanderPlatts et al went after the core function of our courts and tried to pass it off as restoring power to the people and when people began to see through this nonsense and began to see bigotry for what it was, VanderPlatts et al were toast.
Hopefully these silly people will go away and never come back and the rest of us will come up with a way to prevent this from ever happening again.
Yesterday, the voters in 2 states, Maine and Maryland, passed resolutions making same sex marriage legal. The final count is not official yet, but it appears that the voters in Minnesota will reject a resolution that would have made same sex marriage illegal. The trend is clear.
Recent national polls show that the majority of Americans support same sex marriage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States
“’ll have to look at the numbers in the light of day to get a better sense of what happened.”
Translation, “I’ll have to read what others are saying about it”.
If the raw data, the numbers, are looked at how does ” . . . read what others (say) . . . ” enter into it ?
Yeah, because clearly, John, I haven’t had any of my own opinions on this issue. I basically wanted to see more numbers.
Clearly, John. Because it’s obvious. Todd didn’t even respond until many of us weighed in. Because no one ’round here could possibly research facts and figures, and form an educated opinion.
“. . . research facts and figures. . . “: To have the motivation to do that you first have to WANT to form an educated opinion, rather than simply preserve an opinion based on ignorance.
It was a hard-fought fight, but in the end We won. We retained our Constitutional Rights, We defeated those who sought to suppress freedom, We showed that We are not as easily fooled as the forces of darkness and hatred would have us believe. We managed to stave off a poorly-informed rabble of regressive rubes led by a counterfeit “conservative” con man, emerging victorious in the end. Congratulations, We The People, winner of the 2012!
(Note to Grifter Bob’s followers: God has rejected Bob’s message, He would like you to return your focus to doing good works and taking care of those less fortunate than you. He doesn’t want you to help Bob get rich through turning brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor..”
At some point, we will look back on what the Supreme Court did and say, “Yes, Iowa once again was ahead of the curve, we respond well to challenges which say we need to rethink an issue based on the constitution.”
Well done Iowa, you really do apply your will to back what is obviously right. For those who attempted to overturn what is basically a human rights issue, I’d say if 90 % of the people who normally vote against government whenever given the chance hadn’t been coupled with the Grifter Bob folks and the rest of us who didn’t bother to vote on retention had, there would not have been this tempest in a tea pot in the first place. You made the rest of us vote this time to assure you of our wishes.