PSA: It's DEMocracy, not dumbocracy.

It seems that Iowans are going to vote with their votes on whether to allow a few appointed judges to remain in office, after said judges (actually Iowa Supreme Court justices) ruled that same-sex marriage should be legal.

That is, of course, they ruled that gay people can marry other gay people. That is all. They did not rule that gay people should be allowed to marry just whoever they want and force those other people to marry them back unfairly, even if you're not gay yourself. They did not rule that everyone has to be gay. And they did not rule that you had to stop raising your kids to cross to the other side of the street if you saw a "suspected gay person" walking down the sidewalk.

So presumably, like all other gay marriage laws, this law amounts to telling people to mind their own business and let other people mind theirs.

Apparently, Iowans don't vote for justices, but they can vote justices out. Now, I can actually understand the concept of disliking "legislating from the bench," since we're supposed to be a democracy and all that, but recently it's come to my attention that equally annoying and interruptive to public processes is what I'm going to call "benching from the ballot box."

Injecting politics into something that's supposed to be impartial and beyond us all -- "The Law" -- happens all the time in legislation, but judges' chambers are supposed to be free of that. I understand that the side that believes in "saving marriage" for only white heterosexual Protestants uses the same argument to say the judges leaned left in their ruling.

But I have to believe that judges, especially ones who refuse to pour money into a campaign to save their jobs, are at least impartial enough to be bound by the law, whether or not they personally fully agree with it...which means gay people may have the right to get married whether anybody likes it or not. That's just the way our laws are stacking up.

It's our own fault, ultimately, for giving blacks and women the right to vote, and setting all those silly human rights precedents.