Four Years of Equality in the Heartland

Last week the world watched and listened as the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments challenging Proposition 8 and the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA. Within a few months, these discriminatory and shameful laws could be struck down for good, and gay and lesbian couples across the United States may have the opportunity for their love and commitment to be recognized and respected. We are poised to write the next chapter of America's human rights history.

Today, however, we pause to celebrate Iowa. Its motto, "Our liberties we prize, and our rights we will maintain," is especially significant today.

"While the rest of the country was bewildered by Iowa's leadership in this movement, Iowans applauded a long and storied history of upholding individual liberty. This marriage ruling only strengthened what we already knew about Iowa."

Four years ago, on this day in 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously ruled, in Varnum v. Brien, that excluding gay and lesbian couples from marriage violated the promise of equal protection and was thus unconstitutional. We are forever grateful to the incredible team at Lambda Legal who successfully argued the case.

And on that day, while Iowans celebrated, people across the country scratched their heads and asked, "Iowa? Really?" as our state became only the third in the nation to extend the freedom to marry to same-sex couples. This American heartland state found itself ahead of California, New York and all the other "usual suspects." While the rest of the country was bewildered by Iowa's leadership in this movement, Iowans applauded a long and storied history of upholding individual liberty. This marriage ruling only strengthened what we already knew about Iowa.

In 1884 Jennie McCowen, one of the first women to graduate from the University of Iowa Medical Department, wrote, "In no state has it been more freely conceded that human interests are not one but many, and that the work of the world, broad and varied, must fall not upon one sex, nor upon one class, but that each individual, in return for benefit received, is in honor bound to bear his or her share of the burden." We think Jennie would have been proud of the Varnum ruling.

Since the ruling roughly 6,000 same-sex couples have wed in Iowa. Our organization, One Iowa, has assisted couples from as far away as Alabama and Salt Lake City to find an officiate, navigate the county recorder's website and apply for their marriage license. We have stood as witnesses, and we have shared wedding cake, photographs and stories of family, friends and celebration. Ensuring that couples have the rights and responsibilities of marriage guaranteed by that civil marriage license is important, as are those stories of family members who have evolved and now send their daughter's wife Christmas cards, or of sons who will finally see their mothers wed. These are the stories that keep us moving.

Make no mistake: Our opponents continue to work against us with outrageous legislation that would devalue some of their own constituents. We continue to battle against messages from their cultural and political leaders that tell our young people that they are not good enough. Our aging LGBT mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers often worry about going back into the closet, afraid to be doubly vulnerable: gray and gay. And our families fight for basic relationship rights. There is still bullying and discrimination, and we still have so much work to do to protect and support our community, but today we celebrate. We celebrate who we are and who we get to be in Iowa.

Today we celebrate four years of equality in the heartland. We celebrate Kate and Trish Varnum and their growing family. We celebrate Darin and Bill, who were wed in Iowa but live in Omaha and hold out hope that the state they work and pay taxes and live in will soon recognize their love and commitment. We celebrate Dean and Gary, who chose to remain in Iowa in spite of a job offer elsewhere, and make their lives together here because of Iowa's marriage equality. And we celebrate Iowans, an extraordinary group of people who give meaning to "As Iowa goes, so goes the nation."

Today we celebrate our families and our friends as we raise a glass to the future of this great movement for equality, and we extend a hand to our opponents and invite them to join us on the right side of history.

Here's to four years of equality in the heartland -- and to looking forward to many, many more years of celebration!

Cross posted at The Huffington Post