Gay Marriage Ban Overturned in Iowa

In a unanimous ruling handed down today, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld a lower court's ruling that the state ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional. The ruling is expected to take effect in three weeks, meaning that gay and lesbian couples will be able to wed each other in the state of Iowa starting in 21 days.

As a proponent of same-sex marriage, this news is particularly heartening, especially coming so quickly on the heels of the disappointing Proposition 8 passage, which amended the California constitution last November to ban gay marriage only six months after the California Supreme Court declared gay marriage to be a fundamental right within the state.

Gay marriage has been legal for years in Massachusetts and for a few months in Connecticut, and the Vermont legislature today finished voting on a bill legalizing it (which the Republican governor has threatened to veto), but this Iowa ruling confers a great deal of additional legitimacy on gay marriage.

For one thing, a unanimous supreme court ruling indicates that all seven justices are in agreement that banning gay marriage violates equal protection. While only a bare majority is needed for a court ruling to have the full effect of law, the unanimity of the court points to a clear legal consensus which makes it less likely that conservatives will end up claiming that a few "rogue judges" have hijacked the law on this issue.

The location of this ruling is also important. The states on the northern side of the eastern seaboard are generally considered to be liberal, but Iowa is a swing state. It has mostly leaned a little to the left for the past few elections, but it has voted 5 times Democratic and 5 times Republican in the last 10 presidential elections, and out of the 41 presidential elections in which Iowa has ever voted, only 12 of them were for Democratic candidates, according to the Iowa Presidential Election Voting History. It would be difficult to argue that Iowa is a radically liberal state which is completely out of sync with what some conservatives like to call the "real America."

Although people on both sides of this issue can become emotional and angry about it (myself included), the best approach to change is genuine communication, education, and personal experience with homosexuals. People on the right need to realize that those whom others choose to marry doesn't affect their lives or their marriages. There are some (too many) on the right who are nothing more than bigots, but they're in the minority. Most of the conservative opposition simply has a misguided understanding of what will happen to their lives when gay marriage is legalized (for the record, they'll hardly notice at all). Gay marriage has been legal in Massachusetts since 2004, and the sky has neither fallen nor been taken over by gay people. The lack of disastrous social change in Iowa after homosexuals begin wedding each other will likewise help those opposed to gay marriage see that it is not harmful.

More honesty on the part of people who are anti-gay marriage would greatly help facilitate a productive dialogue on this issue. Indeed, the really frustrating thing is the irrational and unconsidered arguments people against gay marriage try to use to support their position. It would be much more straightforward if they simply said something like "You know what? Gay marriage just makes me a little uncomfortable; it seems wrong to me," instead of struggling to come up with "logical" reasons for them to hide behind. (For a rebuttal of the most common arguments against gay marriage, please see my article Keep Gay Marriage Legal).

Sooner or later, gay marriage will be recognized nationwide as a legitimate form of marriage, just as interracial marriages eventually were. The more people opposed to it see that it doesn't do any harm, the faster they will realize that they are getting in the way of the happiness of others for no reason. The ruling from Iowa today will soon help many on the wrong side of this issue to see the light.

Sources:
The Associated Press, "Iowa High Court Legalizes Gay Marriage in State" The New York Times.

Iowa Presidential Election Voting History. 270towin.com.