Gay marriage ban overturned

April 7, 2009

Nicole Colson reports on the implications of the Iowa Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage.

SAME-SEX couples across Iowa and around the U.S. celebrated April 3 after the Iowa Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, declared unconstitutional a state law limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

The court ruled that the state legislature had improperly "excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification."

Same-sex couples will be legally allowed to marry in Iowa as early as the end of this month.

Meanwhile, another victory for equal marriage rights may be in sight in Vermont, where legislation legalizing same-sex marriage passed both houses of the legislature. Republican Gov. Jim Douglas vetoed the bill, but lawmakers were due to hold override votes today.

In Iowa, conservatives denounced the ruling. Republican Rep. Steve King called for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage "so that Iowa does not become the gay marriage Mecca due to the Supreme Court's latest experiment in social engineering." (King also once famously claimed, "Unicorns, leprechauns, gay marriages in Iowa--these are all things you will never find because they just don't exist.")

Celebrating equal marriage rights in Iowa
Celebrating equal marriage rights in Iowa (Alan Light)

Since Iowa voters can't directly initiate state constitutional amendments, an amendment to ban same-sex marriages would require approval by state lawmakers during two legislative sessions, and then approval by voters at the ballot box. That means the earliest the right could win a ban would be 2012. And the Democratic-controlled state legislature seems unlikely to approve such a measure--a similar effort failed several years ago.

And since Iowa doesn't require that people seeking marriage licenses prove they live in the state, the doors will be open to same-sex couples from other states to get married there--although most states will not legally recognize marriages of same-sex couples performed in Iowa.


THE IOWA decision is the latest sign of the shift in attitudes against tolerating legalized discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

According to a new CBS news national poll, 31 percent of people favor equal marriage rights for lesbians and gays, and another 27 percent support civil unions. In 2004, just 22 percent supported gay marriage.

This increase in support for equal rights is a testament to the efforts of LGBT activists and their allies, not only in fighting for marriage equality, but full civil rights in other areas as well.

Iowa joins two other states--Massachusetts and Connecticut--in granting full marriage equality for gays and lesbians. In California, legal marriages for same-sex couples were overturned by a narrow victory last November for the Proposition 8 gay marriage ban, but that referendum is the subject of a court case now being considered by the California Supreme Court.

Then there's Vermont, where the legislature's vote to overturn the governor's veto of an equal marriage bill was pending this week. If the legislation does become law, it would be the first time that equal marriage rights would be made legal by lawmakers, rather than the courts. New York may also follow suit with a similar bill this year.

The Iowa Supreme Court's unanimous decision is a significant boost for all these efforts. As David Twombley, who was part of the court case in Iowa, told the New York Times:

I think there's been a perception that it couldn't happen here. But yes, it happened, right here in Iowa. There's something about that, about it happening in the heartland, that has got to accelerate this process for the whole country.

During arguments on the California court case over Prop 8, there were troubling signs that justices might be siding with the anti-gay marriage right. As Justice Joyce Kennard put it during arguments, the argument is between "the inalienable right to marry and the right of the people to change the Constitution as they see fit."

Except what's at stake is far broader than that--civil rights for an entire group of people. The Iowa decision bolsters the case for equal marriage rights in the rest of the country--something the Iowa justices may have been consciously trying to evoke in their decision.

As Time magazine noted:

The Iowa decision cited the California case eight times and borrowed its reasoning again and again. That kind of homage from a sister court--and one that, like California's, has a long history of breakthrough civil rights decisions--may strengthen the resolve of the majority in the Golden State and turn aside the narrow vote of the people.

The scope of the Iowa judges' decision was broad. In addition to taking up and dismissing arguments that the opposition had raised against gay marriage, the court--in strong terms--said that gays and lesbians were systematically discriminated against as a class, traditionally a criteria that courts use in determining whether a group deserves, as Time put it, "the protection of heightened constitutional scrutiny."

As the decision noted, state authorities

could not in good faith dispute the historical reality that gay and lesbian people as a group have long been the victim of purposeful and invidious discrimination because of their sexual orientation. The long and painful history of discrimination against gay and lesbian persons is epitomized by the criminalization of homosexual conduct in many parts of this country until very recently. Schoolyard bullies have psychologically ground children with apparently gay or lesbian sexual orientation in the cruel mortar and pestle of school-yard prejudice.

After the ruling, in cities across the state, activists gathered to celebrate. At one rally at a park in the city of Council Bluffs, Tom Johnson told the crowd of 100 people how he had asked his wife to marry him 33 years ago in the same park, according to the Omaha World-Herald. As Johnson told the crowd:

At age 18, our son came home from college for Christmas to tell us he is gay. Our son is still perfect, but the law said he is not equal to our daughter. Today in Iowa, you made our son equal. Thank you, Iowa, for doing what all parents who love their children know: Our children are special and deserve equality before the law.

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