That’s the ruling from a judge yesterday. He ruled that the ban on prohibiting gays from getting married is unconstitutional.

DES MOINES, Iowa – Less than two hours after a judge struck down Iowa’s decade-old gay marriage ban, two Des Moines men applied for a marriage license as bride and groom, and county officials said they expected to see more same-sex couples doing the same on Friday. [...]

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson cleared the way for the two men on Thursday when he ruled that a state law allowing marriage only between a man and woman violated the constitutional rights of due process and equal protection.

The judge ordered local officials to process marriage licenses for the six gay couples who sued. With the ruling, gay couples across the state can now apply for a marriage license in the central-Iowa county.

Will this be THE issue in Iowa in 2008? And will the ruling stick?

“It’s a newer judge, and one thought was that he’d defer it up to the Supreme Court,” said Butler. “I haven’t read the case yet but people tell us it’s a strongly worded opinion. We assume it will not end here.”

Get ready folks, because this is going to happen quite a bit over the next decade.

UPDATE:

And here’s a full article…

…courtesy of TheNewsRoom.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 31st, 2007 and is filed under Law, Sexuality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.