Same-sex couples in Iowa began holding hastily planned weddings on Monday as the state became the third in the US to allow gay marriage, a leap that even some supporters find hard to grasp in the country’s heartland.
Within hours of a state Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage taking effect, several same-sex couples had exchanged vows on the steps of the Polk County Administrative Building.
“It’s not very romantic, is it?” Melisa Keeton joked, referring to the location of the ceremony and the media attention, before marrying Shelley Wolfe.
The couple were allowed to wed after getting a judge to waive the state’s three-day waiting period. The waiver was granted after the couple claimed the wait was stressful on Keeton, who is pregnant and due in August.
The couple, who will go by the last name Keeton, were married by the Reverend Peg Esperanza of the Church of the Holy Spirit. She later married at least two other couples, all at no charge.
“God sent me here today and I’ve said OK,” said Esperanza, a lesbian who plans to marry her partner in October.
On April 3, the Iowa justices upheld a lower court ruling that rejected a state law restricting marriage to a union between a man and woman. The decision added Iowa to the list of states where gay marriage is legal, joining Massachusetts and Connecticut. A Vermont law allowing gay marriage will take effect in September.
Officials said the Polk County recorder’s office had received 82 marriage applications from same-sex couples by 4pm.
One of them was Alicia Zacher, 24, and Jessica Roach, 22, who waited in a misting rain to enter the office and file their application. They later got a waiver and planned to get married as soon as possible after seeing how California voters last year reinstated a ban on same-sex marriage.
“You just never know when they’ll try to take it away,” Roach said.
A poll by the University of Iowa taken just before the high court’s ruling showed 26 percent of Iowans support gay marriage.
That number rises to more than 50 percent when people were asked if they supported either gay marriage or civil unions.
“If they want to marry, I don’t see a reason not to let them,” said Joe Biase, a 31-year-old university student from Des Moines.
“For a state in the heartland, it’s come a long way,” he said.
Still, the issue is far from settled.
Bryan English of the Iowa Family Policy Center, which opposes same-sex marriage, said the legislature and Governor Chet Culver had put some “poor county recorders in an awfully tough position today” by not working to block the court’s ruling from taking effect.
The group wants the state to begin the multiyear process of amending Iowa’s Constitution to overturn the court decision.
Culver and majority Democrats have refused, which Republicans predicted would hurt Democrats in next year’s elections.
One gubernatorial candidate, Sioux City businessman Bob Vander Plaats, has already made gay marriage a focal point of his run for the Republican nomination.
“This will be a major issue in the campaign of 2010,” Vander Plaats said.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
RSS