Marriage Licenses Are Only For Generating Revenue (Blog)

Written by Randi Shannon, Iowa Senate Candidate District 34

Recently a survey of several Gazette questions came out to all the candidates running for Iowa House and Senate seats. As you may know I’m running for State Senate in District 34.  I spent a lot of time answering them for the Gazette and even more so for the voters.  I noticed that my opponent, democrat Liz Mathis, did not answer the survey, even though the Gazette endorsed her last fall for having excellent communication skills. The Gazette has said nothing about Liz Mathis’ failure to communicate, which must sting the Gazette considerably.   

One of the 3 part questions was "Should voters be allowed to decide whether to amend the State Constitution to define marriage as only between one man and one woman? Do you support the April 2009 Iowa Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage or do you oppose such unions? Should the Legislature impeach the four remaining justices who supported that unanimous decision? In response to the questions, I decided to help educate the voters on just how marriage licenses came to be.  I think it's rather fascinating and it's a part of history that no one talks about.

After the civil war, the white southerners wanted to prevent mixed-race marriages, so they passed local laws requiring a license for all black people to get married, but of course licenses for mixed-raced marriages were never granted. Within a short time, it became illegal for the clergy to marry blacks without a license.

The license required a fee of course, and this worked so well that it wasn’t long before the licensing requirement was extended to everyone. The politicians realized that it was a wonderful source of revenue. 

Within a few decades, corrupt governments all over the world were requiring people to get marriage licenses.  Now, more than a century after marriage licenses were conceived, the clergy, who fear the government more than they fear God, refuses to marry anyone without a license. I personally believe that marriage should not be a source of revenue for government.

Please note, that God gave us the right to be married and it is an unalienable right of the likes of which is mentioned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. (Unalienable rights endowed by our Creator.)  

Iowans should be granted the opportunity to vote on this issue! They should be given the facts and then the opportunity to have their say.  As I’ve clearly shown here, marriage licenses are a government overreach born out of the love of money, which is the root of all kinds of evil.  

What say you?