Iowa Supreme Court overturns gay marriage ban

[SanibelMan]

From the Des Moines Register:

The Iowa Supreme Court this morning unanimously upheld gays’ right to marry.

“The Iowa statute limiting civil marriage to a union between a man and a woman violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution,” the justices said in a summary of their decision.

The court rules that gay marriage would be legal in three weeks, starting April 24.

The court affirmed a Polk County District Court decision that would allow six gay couples to marry.

I had no idea this was even at the Supreme Court in Iowa. Had you told me Iowa would be the third state to legalize gay marriage, I would have laughed. This is awesome!

[Annie-Xmas]

Way to go Iowa

[bouv]

Well, aren’t they technicality the fourth state? California did have gay marriage for a little while. In related news, the Vermont house passed OUR gay marriage bill…but or governor has already said he’ll veto.

[Furious_Marmot]

Iowa? Maybe flyover country does have real American values after all. Go liberty!

I can’t wait to hear my coworkers and elected officials (shudder) decry the atheist, liberal, activist judges of the People’s Republic of Iowa.

[Darth_Sensitive]

@Furious_Marmot

Iowa? Maybe flyover country does have real American values after all. Go liberty!

I can’t wait to hear my coworkers and elected officials (shudder) decry the atheist, liberal, activist judges of the People’s Republic of Iowa.

:rolleyes:

[matt_mcl]

@SanibelMan

Had you told me Iowa would be the third state to legalize gay marriage, I would have laughed.

Hey, don’t count them out. The fourth place in Canada to get SSM was the Yukon.

[AuntiePam]

@Furious_Marmot

Iowa? Maybe flyover country does have real American values after all. Go liberty!

Ahem. Don’t forget – Iowa’s Democrats (and a lot of Independents and a few Republicans who crossed over) gave Obama the start he needed in January 2008.

Polls show most Iowans support legal recognition of gay unions. Don’t ask me for a cite though – it was a headline on the local CBS page a few days ago but I can’t find it now.

[Captain_Carrot]

@bouv

Well, aren’t they technicality the fourth state? California did have gay marriage for a little while. In related news, the Vermont house passed OUR gay marriage bill…but or governor has already said he’ll veto.

And though the House didn’t have a veto-proof majority in the first vote, some of the naysayers said that they would vote to overturn the veto.

[NinjaChick]

@AuntiePam

Ahem. Don’t forget – Iowa’s Democrats (and a lot of Independents and a few Republicans who crossed over) gave Obama the start he needed in January 2008.

Polls show most Iowans support legal recognition of gay unions. Don’t ask me for a cite though – it was a headline on the local CBS page a few days ago but I can’t find it now.

I could be completely wrong, but I’ve never had the impression of Iowa as particularly conservative or particularly liberal, but pretty middle-of-the-road.

This makes me happy.

[Equipoise]

This makes me ecstatic! I’m not from Iowa myself, but my grandparents lived there most of their lives (grandfather born there, grandmother born in Germany and raised in Iowa), and my dad, who probably had a stroke when he heard this news, was born there. I’m too polite to call my racist, homophobic dad and gloat about Obama or this, but here’s to you pop…

YAY FOR IOWA!!

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

And Sweden, too – on the same day.

[Little_Bird]

We are actually a very progressive state–people think we are all redneck farmers, but if you look at our history we have a very strong trend of being on the cutting edge of civil rights and education. It’s a good day to be an Iowan!

[Death_of_Rats]

@Furious_Marmot

Iowa? Maybe flyover country does have real American values after all. Go liberty!

I can’t wait to hear my coworkers and elected officials (shudder) decry the atheist, liberal, activist judges of the People’s Republic of Iowa.

Ours already did. God, King is such an embarassment.

[Boyo_Jim]

@t-bonham@scc.net

And Sweden, too – on the same day.

The Iowa Supreme Court declared Sweden unconstitutional?

[matt_mcl]

@Little_Bird

We are actually a very progressive state–people think we are all redneck farmers, but if you look at our history we have a very strong trend of being on the cutting edge of civil rights and education.

And even the farmers are all growing arugula, IIRC.

[The_Tao_s_Revenge]

@Boyo_Jim

The Iowa Supreme Court declared Sweden unconstitutional?

Well many of their laws are in complete defiance of the Iowa state Constitution.

[WarmNPrickly]

I lived in Iowa for a while, and it is not a regressive backwater state. I tried to tell my Starbucks sipping west coast freinds that and they simply laughed at my midwestern standards. Iowa is a pretty good place.

[appleciders]

Yep. I didn’t expect this out of anywhere in the Midwest any time soon, but if the Midwest was going to start, Iowa was going to start it. Good for them!

[not_alice]

@SanibelMan

From the Des Moines Register: I had no idea this was even at the Supreme Court in Iowa. Had you told me Iowa would be the third state to legalize gay marriage, I would have laughed. This is awesome!

nitpick - 4th state. The jury is still out on California and for that matter Iowa suffering the same fate eventually. But if you are going to count Iowa at this stage, then you have to acknowledge California too having reached that stage, even if it is in limbo now.

[Equipoise]

@not_alice

The jury is still out on California and for that matter Iowa suffering the same fate eventually.

According to Death of Rats’ link:

DES MOINES, Iowa – Gay marriage, seemingly the province of the nation’s two coasts, is just weeks away from becoming a reality in the heartland and apparently it will be years before social conservatives have a chance to stop it.

The Iowa Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld a lower-court ruling that rejected a state law restricting marriage to a union between a man and woman. Now gays and lesbians may exchange vows as soon as April 24 following the landmark decision.

The county attorney who defended the law said he would not seek a rehearing. The only recourse for opponents appeared to be a constitutional amendment, which couldn’t get on the ballot until 2012 at the earliest.

By then, all but the most hateful bigots will see that nobody died because the gays got married, nobody’s marriage was hurt or threatened because the gays got married, and life goes on as usual. I believe that it will be increasingly hard to get mainstream Americans to go along with bigotry and fear.

According to Nate Silver at 538:

As in California, there will of course be an effort to amend the state constitution to prohibit gay marriage. In Iowa, however, the hurdle to amending the constitution is fairly high: it will have to be approved by two consecutive sessions of the state legislature and then by a majority of the voters. Most likely, this means that Iowans won’t vote on the issue until 2012.

This is good news for defenders of marriage equity, because while you might know it from Proposition 8’s victory last year, voter initiatives to ban gay marriage are becoming harder and harder to pass every year.

[…VERY fascinating article about how attitudes are changing…]

Overall, however, marriage bans appear unlikely to be an electoral winner for very much longer, and soon the opposite may prove to be true.

The bigots are still winning some battles here and there, but ultimately they will lose their hateful War On Love.