What Iowa Means To California
Filed by: Guest Blogger
April 3, 2009 4:00 PM

http://www.bilerico.com/2009/04/what_iowa_means_to_california.php

Editors' Note: Guest blogger Shannon Minter is the legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights and lead counsel for same-sex couples and Equality California in Strauss v. Horton, the challenge to Proposition 8 currently pending before the California Supreme Court. The California Supreme Court is expected to rule on the validity of Proposition 8, which altered the California Constitution to eliminate the right to marry for same-sex couples, by June 3, 2009.

Shannon_Minter.jpgIn the first ruling from a Midwestern state to uphold full equality for same-sex couples, the Iowa Supreme Court (in a case brilliantly litigated by Lambda Legal) unanimously ruled today that Iowa's statutory ban on marriage by same-sex couples violated the equal protection guarantee of the Iowa Constitution. That historic decision from the heartland of our nation, affirming the bedrock principle of equality for all, rightly puts a spotlight on the California Supreme Court, which must rule on the validity of Proposition 8 in the next 60 days.

Last November, a bare majority of California voters enacted Proposition 8, which added a provision to the California Constitution restricting marriage to heterosexual couples. Proposition 8 reversed the California Supreme Court's 2008 decision striking California's statutory ban on marriage by same-sex couples and holding - in ringing and eloquent terms - that the provision of a separate status for those couples was inherently unequal.

The thing to remember about Iowa is it's really two states and the dividing line is approximately Interstate 35. East of that is the heavily populated part of the state which is extremely progressive. West of the interstate is the lightly populated conservative part. Historically the eastern counties have far more influence in Des Moines than the western counties do. The west may grumble and complain, but in the end they always go along with the east.