Spartan Daily - Serving San Jose State University since 1934

Issue date: 4/6/09 Section: Opinion

There's something to be learned from the power behind the Iowa Supreme Court's ruling on Friday in the case of Varnum v. Brien, which legalized same-sex marriage in the state. The ruling makes Iowa the fourth state to do so through the courts, and the first to do so that wasn't an East or West Coast state.

But it isn't just that the Iowa court legalized same-sex marriage. The state also has the means to protect its ruling from the same irrationality that ruled the day in California, allowing the state to be nation's guinea pig for the topic.

The Iowa ruling is everything California's same-sex marriage debacle was not. The decision was emphatic and unanimous, a 7-0 vote. In California, the court, split as close to down the middle as it could, giving a weak-kneed 4-3 vote.

The Iowa court saw it as a matter of equal protection, an argument lost on California voters.

"This class of people asks a simple and direct question," the justices stated in their ruling. "How can a state premised on the constitutional principle of equal protection justify exclusion of a class of Iowans from civil marriage?"

The court applied what it calls the "rational basis test," which means that the plaintiff - in this case, the same-sex couples - must show on every level that the state's statute is unconstitutional, while asking that the legislature only show a meaningful reason for the law.

It's a test that clearly favors the government. For Iowa's Supreme Court to say the state's reasoning contradicted its own constitution shows the enormity of the message sent.

But what about the values of "traditional marriage," a term batted about throughout the Proposition 8 debate?

The Iowa court reached into history for its response, drawing from one of the Supreme Court's more well-spoken justices.

"It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past," said Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1897.

The court rejected tradition as a reason for limiting marriage. The Iowa justices asked the key question regarding same-sex marriage that no one bothered to ask of the supporters of Proposition 8: What government function is being furthered by this law?

In Iowa's case, the court felt there was none.

Continued...

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