Ruling against Iowa marriage ban stayed

DES MOINES - From towns around Iowa, places like Cedar Falls, Ames, and Cedar Rapids, same-sex couples converged on this city as early as dawn yesterday as word spread that a judge had overturned a state statute banning gay marriage.

"Imagine this - right here in Iowa," said Amanda Duncan as she and her partner of three years, Aleece Ramirez, filled out their application for a marriage license and put down $35. "Hopefully, this starts a fire that spreads to other places."

The chance was fleeting. After four hours, Robert B. Hanson, the county judge who had deemed the same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional, delayed further granting of licenses until Iowa's Supreme Court could decide whether to consider an appeal.

Still, national advocates for same-sex marriage pointed to the developments here as significant. An issue that has largely been battled on the nation's coasts, in states such as Massachusetts and California, they said, had now made its way to the nation's more conservative middle.

"There are some people scratching their heads and saying, Iowa?" said Jon Davidson, the legal director at Lambda Legal, which worked on the case that led to yesterday's marriage applications. "But this shows that there are lesbian and gay people everywhere who would like to get married."

Opponents of same-sex marriage said they viewed the decision as a rallying cry, a reason that a federal amendment defining marriage is needed, and a reason that an amendment to the Iowa Constitution - not just a statute - is needed.

"This is the misguided decision of one person," said Chris Stovall, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which opposes same-sex marriage, of Hanson's ruling on the constitutionality of the ban. "I don't think it represents at all what Iowa thinks. People across America and certainly in Iowa, in the heartland, understand that marriage is the union between one man and one woman."

Christopher Rants, the Republican minority leader of the Iowa House, said the ruling showed the need for a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, the Associated Press reported. "I can't believe this is happening in Iowa," he said. "I guarantee you there will be a vote on this issue come January" when the Legislature convenes.

Massachusetts is the only state that allows same-sex marriage.

A handful of other states, including Vermont, New Jersey, and Connecticut, allow same-sex civil unions, while a few others, including California, allow other legal partnerships.

Hanson's ruling on Thursday - and the fallout yesterday - have also raised once more the issue of same-sex marriage among the presidential candidates who devote so much time in this state leading up to its early caucuses.

It is welcome for those candidates firmly opposed to or supportive of same-sex marriage, political analysts said yesterday, but has created an unwanted and thorny issue for those who have tried to walk a careful line somewhere in between.

"It really is a monkey wrench that sort of is thrown into the process for some of them," said Steffen W. Schmidt, a professor of political science at Iowa State University. "It's potentially more dangerous for the Democrats, where the front-runners have been trying to finesse this issue."

At least two Republican presidential candidates, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas and Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, swiftly issued statements opposing the judge's decision.