The national fight over same-sex marriage is coming to a peak in Iowa, where the state’s Supreme Court will hear arguments early next month over whether the state’s ban on gay unions is unconstitutional.
The debate over the future of Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act, a decade-old law that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, comes after a controversial ruling by a lower-court judge last year.
Iowa District Court for Polk County Judge Robert Hanson ruled in August 2007 that the act violated the state constitutional rights of equal protection and due process. The ruling stood for less than 24 hours, before a Polk County attorney filed an appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court.
But in the nearly nine business hours that same-sex marriage was legal in the Hawkeye State, dozens of couples applied for licenses.
Only one couple — a pair of Iowa State University undergraduates — was able to move fast enough to obtain a license and rush through a ceremony before the stay was enacted.
Now, both national advocates and opponents of same-sex marriage say they will closely monitor the Dec. 9 hearing in Des Moines.
More than half of the country’s states have a law that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
In California, the state Supreme Court has agreed to review legal challenges to Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage and was passed by voters this month.
In Iowa, attorney Camilla Taylor, lead counsel for the prosecution, said the Iowa case is not about issues of faith.
“All we’re talking about is government-issued marriage licenses,” said Taylor, who works for Lamda Legal. The national gay-rights organization filed the lawsuit in 2005 on behalf of six same-sex Iowa couples; it was later amended to include three children whose parents are plaintiffs.
Legal in two states
There are now two states — Massachusetts and Connecticut — where marriage licenses can be legally issued to gay couples.
