A sometime GOP
candidate for the U.S. Senate in Iowa seeks to impeach the
district court judge who last month struck down Iowa's ban
on same-sex marriage, the Associated Press reported.
Hog farmer Bill
Salier and the group he cofounded, Everyday America, this
week launched online petitions asking the Iowa legislature
to impeach Polk County judge Robert Hanson, who Salier
says violated the state constitution in his August 30
ruling.
Dozens of gay and
lesbian couples lined up in Des Moines for marriage
licenses, but only one couple was able to wed before Hanson
stayed his own ruling pending review by higher courts.
"He's using his
own political agenda to advance what he wants to see
out of his own social norms and his own personal
viewpoints," Salier told Radio Iowa's O. Kay
Henderson. "That's legislating from the bench and
overriding the authority of the elected individuals that the
people of the state of Iowa put in charge."
Impeaching a
judge takes an act of the legislature, which is controlled
by Democrats. Gov. Chet Culver, who has criticized Hanson's
ruling but signed several pro-gay measures into law,
is a Democrat as well. State senate majority leader
Mike Gronstal reportedly laughed upon learning of
Salier's petition.
Response from
EverydayAmerica.com's readers, who appear to slant
libertarian, has been tepid. "A government that is designed
for the sole purpose of protecting the people from
force and fraud (for that's what liberty is),
shouldn't care if I am married or single or who I am
married to," wrote one. "Think of it as free-market
sociology."
The petition had
attracted 124 signatures as of Wednesday afternoon.
Salier's fallback position is to work to unseat Hanson when
he comes up for reelection in 2010.
A few years back,
Radio Iowa reported, Iowa voters failed to oust a
Sioux City judge who had approved divorce papers for a
same-sex couple joined in civil union in another
state.
Salier, who ran
in Iowa's 2002 Republican primary for U.S. Senate, is
chairman of Rep. Tom Tancredo's Iowa presidential campaign.
(Barbara Wilcox, The Advocate)
