Justices were simply doing their job

It is sad to see members of the Iowa Supreme Court so threatened by a non-retention campaign simply because they were doing their job in striving to uphold the state's Constitution.

Would we really want a judiciary that bows to the will of whatever political party is in power at the moment? The checks and balances so carefully written into the U.S. Constitution depend absolutely on the impartiality of the courts.

It is odd that the same people who have been talking so loudly about “returning to the Constitution” seem quite happy to set aside that concern when the consequence of such impartiality goes against their own views.

I wonder how they will deal with this when the evidence for the genetic basis of homosexuality becomes so strong as to be incontrovertible? Even now, it defies the imagination to think that gays and lesbians “choose” their orientation, considering the nastiness and bigotry to which they are subjected. People who know any of them perceive that their orientation is innate.

One shudders at the hatred being expressed in the current campaign.

Impartiality seems to be slipping away on the national level as well. Witness the spectacle of the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas campaigning for conservative causes, including the repeal of the health care law: What options does that leave her husband?

Joan O. Falconer

Iowa City