At the time, I was winding down my blog on Beliefnet. I decided to look back at my blog article for April 3, 2009, and share my initial reaction to the Iowa State Supreme Court's Varnum v. Brien case and share it here:
Good news! Iowa's Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling striking down the state's DOMA law. In less than a month, all couples -- mixed-gender or same-sexed -- will be able to obtain marriage licenses!Four years later, no religious leader has been forced to officiate at any wedding against their will -- not for any opposite-sex couple and certainly not for any same-sex couple. No church has been forced to allow any wedding on their property that violated its wedding policies. Nobody has been jailed or fined for speaking out against same-sex relationships or families.
What this doesn't mean: Churches and ministers will not be forced to marry gay couples. They are not forced to marry any straight couple right now and this will not change. Churches can set whatever wedding policy they want: no weddings; only weddings for members; only weddings for members or family members of members; only weddings for members of their denominations or faith; etc. If First Congregation United Church of Christ in Anytown, IA, decides that it doesn't want to marry Jim & Jerry, nothing can force them to do this.
What this means: I'm engaged to my husband, Mark! No specific plans currently exist, but we are going to get a marriage license to protect ourselves and our children.
Even with a DOMA law in place, we were able to wed at my church, Faith United Church of Christ, back in 1997. It was a purely symbolic ceremony. Even if the state wasn't going to recognize our union, it was important to both of us to find a church that was willing to unite us as a couple.
The church honors our marriage. Our state doesn't. Still doesn't until we obtain a license.
Now we have the opportunity to become legally married. We will definitely do a "justice of the peace" type ceremony. We want to make it clear to anyone and everyone that this license has nothing to do with God, with the church, or with religion. It's a license that offers specific state-honored rights and responsibilities.
It is possible that we will hold a follow-up religious wedding. That's still being considered. But we already did that nearly 12 years ago.
Either way, it's an exciting day for us and many other Iowans!!!!
There have been growing pains as state agencies -- particularly the Iowa Department of Public Records -- have struggled with treating all of this state's families equally under the law.
There have been some public relations SNAFUs involving private businesses (usually cake-makers) who don't want to make money off same-sex couples. Most of those anti-gay businesses and their supporters have complained about being penalized for objecting to gay marriage, but they're ended up laughing all the way to the bank after gaining support from anti-gay customers. So it all worked out in the end.
There have been ongoing efforts -- usually by conservative religious groups and House Republicans -- to amend the Iowa State Constitution to essentially undo the Varnum decision and to eliminate the equal marriage rights and responsibilities of Iowa's gay and lesbian families. Fortunately, Iowa Senate Democrats have effectively blocked this process from happening and protected all of Iowa's families from legislative harm.
Iowa has been a marriage equality state for four years now. No harm has fallen upon our state because of that court decision. No family has been negatively affected by that court decision. Nothing has changed except that families like mine now share the same legal rights, responsibilities, and protections as our heterosexual neighbors.
Congratulations, Iowa!