Iowa’s Gay Marriage Ban Found Unconstitutional
Wow. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that the state's same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional, striking "the language from Iowa code limiting marriage to only between a man a woman." The fight for gay marriage has been moving through the state courts since 2005. This is huge.
2:50 pm
Interestingly, the applied intermediate scrutiny and found it to fail. CA applied strict scrutiny; MA applied rational-basis review. I suspect that most states will go the way of IA and apply intermediate scrutiny -- which represents an expansion of the concept (previously intermed. scrutiny was only for gender). Effectively, courts are starting to see sexual orientation as being analogous to sex: there's something there (some sort of innate difference), but not enough to justify the heavy baggage we place on it.
4:18 pm
This will not be able to be immediately overturned as it was in California because of the structure of the Iowa constitution. Constitutional amendments must be passed by two consecutive legislatures, and the current (democratic) legislature has rejected an amendment. Thus, anti-equality legislators must win a majority in the next two elections to even put the issue on a ballot. So gays in Iowa have at least 4 years before their rights can evaporate.