Early Markers

One of the things that makes life really interesting (sometimes a little too interesting) is when expectations are upended.

So, who would have guessed that Iowa would be the third state to legalize marriage between persons of the same sex? And that barely a week later Vermont would follow suit.

The first was my beloved Massachusetts. But that was not really a surprise since many people (especially those who don’t know it), think the state is totally whacked anyway. Then came Connecticut. But that’s probably just the ruboff factor from being next to Massachusetts.

California (now there’s no surprise) was next in legalizing so-called gay marriage, but this was overturned in November when the Mormons allegedly went all out and financed an electoral push that rejected it.

Now there’s Iowa. And Vermont. My goodness, as Aunt Polly used to say as she stood on the porch watching the cows come back from the pasture, isn’t this a turn of events?

How this came about in the Hawkeye State is that the Iowa Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling from a couple of years ago that overturned a state law that restricted civil marriage to the joining of a man and a woman.

Just as startling as the upholding itself was the fact that the 7-person Supreme Court was unanimous in handing down its decision.

According to the New York Times, Justice Mark Cady, a Republican appointee, wrote, “We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further an important governmental objective. The legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification.”