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Gay marriage comes to the Heartland
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The Iowa Supreme Court handed down their ruling today that will effectively bring gay marriage to America's Heartland. The unanimous ruling upheld a lower court's decision that found the state law banning same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional.
The ruling means that gay and lesbian couples can start receiving marriage licenses immediately. They will be able to start marrying by the end of the month.
This is significant for a couple of reasons. First of all, the location of this fight for gay marriage was unexpected. Many people had assumed that the battlegrounds for same-sex marriage would continue to be on the West Coast and in the New England states, with the fight slowly inching into the more conservative states in the middle of the country. But now, Iowa is set to become the third state to allow same-sex marriage following Massachusetts and Connecticut.
The other reason this ruling has major impact is that the judges also stated civil unions were not a reasonable substitute for marriage. The ruling stated, "A new distinction based on sexual orientation would be equally suspect and difficult to square with the fundamental principles of equal protection embodied in our constitution." In other words, separate isn't equal.
Of course, the matter of gay marriage in Iowa is probably not settled quite yet. There is every indication that there will be further attempts by anti-gay marriage advocates to circumvent the court's ruling. Republican leaders called for a Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. With Democrats controlling both houses of the state legislature and the Governor's mansion, it is unclear if such a measure would gain traction. It could, however, be used as a wedge issue in upcoming elections in the state.
Regardless of what the future holds for same-sex marriage in Iowa, today's Supreme Court ruling was cause for excitement across the nation. In Hillcrest, a celebration is scheduled for tonight outside of The Centre at University Avenue and Centre Street.
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