Our seven Iowa Supreme Court judges have turned their wisdom of God's word and voted for a minority of the people in Iowa.

Is democracy no longer a value? Do we, the people, have a voice when it comes to whether this state of Iowa allows same sex marriage?

Our government leaders are elected to serve the interest and represent the will and majority of we, the people. If government is representing the minority of the people, then democracy is doomed to fail. Maybe our government officials and our Iowa Supreme Court judges need to go back and read the preamble of the Declaration of Independence.

I am appalled by the seven Iowa Supreme Court judges who unanimously decided to strike the language from the Iowa Code section 595.2 - only a marriage between a male and a female is valid - to be unconstitutional and now to allow same-sex marriage.

After all these years of human history and roughly 170 years of Iowa's simple, settled marriage law history, we now have our seven Iowa Supreme Court Judges basically overturning that law and deciding among themselves what is right. Iowa is a sovereign state. If what the legislative and executive branches did back in 1998 is not good enough in 2009, then let the 3 million people in the state of Iowa vote on this major issue. This is the message that Majority Leader Mike Gronstal and House Speaker Pat Murphy need to get into their heads.

The Iowa Supreme Court found one constitutional principle was at the heart of the case - the doctrine of equal protection. Equal protection, under the Iowa Constitution, "is essentially a direction that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike." Since territorial times, Iowa has given meaning to this constitutional provision, striking blows to slavery and segregation and recognizing women's rights, which I feel are important issues. What I can't understand is how the court can put same-sex marriage into the same category.

The three branches of government have their own separate responsibilities and duties. One branch can't function without the others. Most important is that none of the branches can function without the consent of we, the people, of this sovereign state of Iowa.

A bipartisan attempt to allow and bring issue House Joint Resolution 6, which would have been a step toward giving Iowans the chance to vote to amend the state Constitution to specify that marriage between one man and one woman shall be the only legal union valid or recognized in this state, was ruled out of order by Murphy.

One only needs to listen to Gronstal's speech on YouTube to get a good idea on where our society is going.

As a citizen of Iowa, I was totally embarrassed to listen to Gronstal's reply to Senate Leader Paul McKinley, who asked Gronstal to help co-sponsor a craft leadership bill on this important issue and bring to the floor for a vote of this body. Gronstal's reply to McKinley was that he had learned something from his daughter, who apparently made a comment to her father and quoted the following after having a conversation with some older conservative men regarding same-sex marriage: "You guys don't understand, you've already lost; my generation doesn't care."

Gronstal rejected the offer of McKinley to co-sponsor a craft leadership bill.

At least the state of California had enough sense to allow the voters of their state to vote on this issue. I can only hope that Iowans will vote those responsible out of office.

God didn't intend man and man or woman and woman to marry. If that were the case, I wouldn't be writing this column. Life, as we know it, wouldn't exist.