SIOUX CITY, IA -
Another of the justices who voted to make same-sex marriage legal in Iowa is up for a vote this November to decide whether he'll remain on the bench.
The Iowa GOP Chairman announced today that he's urging Iowans to vote Justice David Wiggins out, but some say the Chairman stepped out of line.
The Woodbury County GOP Chairman says he stands by the announcement. At the same time, the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa executive director says it's outrageous.
"The definition of marriage is between one man and one woman. And a handful of judges one day decided different," said Brian Rosener, Woodbury County GOP Chairman.
The issue came before the Iowa Supreme Court back in 2009.
The justices legalized same-sex marriage in a unanimous opinion.
The next year, three of the seven justices were up for retention and all three were ousted. Now a fourth justice, David Wiggins, is up for retention.
Iowa GOP Chairman A.J. Spiker says Iowans should vote against retaining Wiggins when they hit the polls in November.
But Connie Ryan Terrell, the executive director of Interfaith Alliance of Iowa, says Spiker crossed the line.
"We take great strides in our state to ensure politics are not part of the judicial retention process, and so for a political party to make such a bold statement is truly outrageous," she said.
But Rosener says House Democrats in Des Moines won't let the issue of same-sex marriage re-surface, so Republicans are retaliating.
"If the Democrats are playing politics with it, and won't allow us to vote, then certainly the responsible thing to do, from the Republicans is to put the issue back out there and certainly when you have activist judges, we have here in Iowa, the ability to remove them from the courts," he said.
Terrell says in 2010, the efforts to oust the three judges were lead by outside groups, but this time it's different.
"With this, is that it is one political party that has decided to make a public statement and that has, in its statement also told voters how they believe voters should pass the ballot, that simply is wrong, the political party should stay out of this conversation because retention of justices are designed to be non-political," she said.
