April 28, 2009
A Quiet Day in Iowa as Same-Sex Couples Line Up to Marry
By MONICA DAVEY
DES MOINES — In a way, life looked unexpectedly ordinary here on Monday as Iowa
began allowing same-sex couples to marry.
The large, angry protests some had imagined never materialized in this city,
the state’s most populous. Neither did the crowds of couples from all over the
nation that some feared might create a carnival-like atmosphere captured in
earlier images from other places.
By noon, no protesters could be found outside the marriage license office.
Extra sheriff’s deputies assigned to keep order milled around the Polk County
recorder’s office, looking bored. And an early-morning line of dozens of
same-sex couples waiting to apply for licenses had dwindled into a few people
discussing recent rainfall patterns.
Given polls showing that most Iowans object to same-sex marriage, Shawn
Regenold and Steve Kearney of West Des Moines had feared a tense, perhaps
overwhelming scene. Thus they decided not to bring their children — ages 2, 3
and 4 — as they sought their license. Instead, they found a quiet building
where, every so often, couples receiving licenses burst into rounds of applause
and where, on the front steps, a local pastor married a few smiling couples as
television cameras rolled.
“People in Iowa tend to get real hot about things,” said Maggie Grace, a
neighbor of the West Des Moines couple who had come to fulfill the witness
requirement for their license. “And then they go on about their way.”
Officials in some of the state’s 98 other counties described similarly low-key
scenes on the day Iowa became the latest state to permit same-sex marriage and
the first in the Midwest to do so. The Iowa Supreme Court unanimously ruled
this month that a decade-old law prohibiting same-sex marriage violated the
State Constitution.
In Davenport, talk of a morning protest came and went. In Iowa City, an
opponent of same-sex marriage delivered a petition signed by eight people
urging the local county recorder there not to grant licenses. Similar
petitions, some with many more signatures, were delivered across the state,
though the Iowa attorney general has said recorders must abide by the court’s
decision and provide the marriage licenses.
Protests were more pronounced in some rural areas. About 50 people waited
outside the Wayne County Courthouse urging the recorder there, Angela Horton,
not to allow the marriages.
“Speaking for myself personally, it has put me in a difficult position,” Ms.
Horton said. “But I am going to uphold the law.” She noted that by midafternoon
no same-sex couples had sought licenses at her office.
Chuck Hurley, the leader of the Iowa Family Policy Center, which opposes such
marriages, said he and others were distressed that state lawmakers had
adjourned for the year on Sunday without agreeing to begin the process of
amending the State Constitution to stop the unions. Mr. Hurley, who delivered a
petition with thousands of signatures to the recorder here early Monday, told
reporters that more people had not turned out to object because they were busy
“raising children and going to work.”
“People I associate with are very much law-abiding people,” he said. “They’re
not going to chain themselves to their recorders’ offices.”
Iowa joins Connecticut and Massachusetts in allowing same-sex marriage, and
Vermont will follow in September. California also allowed them for about six
months until voters there rejected the idea in November.
The Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling on April 3, which surprised many here, spurred
a new set of technical, philosophical and legal questions, which public
officials and others have been racing to sort through over the past three
weeks.
State officials were rushing to change the wording on marriage license
applications and other official documents to reflect the change. The forms now
refer to “Party A” and “Party B” and give applicants an option to describe
themselves as “bride,” “groom” or “spouse.”
Though the court’s ruling had no direct effect on religious leaders, many must
decide whether to marry same-sex couples. Members of some denominations are
divided on the matter.
By the end of Monday, more than 200 couples had applied and paid $35 for
marriage licenses in Iowa. (No statewide count was available.) Some came from
neighboring states like Illinois and Nebraska, officials said. Iowa requires a
three-day waiting period for applicants to marry, though some couples received
waivers from judges and were married by Monday afternoon.
Melisa Keeton, 31, and Shelley Wolfe Keeton, 38, let out a cheer when a clerk
here offered congratulations and their certificate of marriage. The couple had
raced among the recorder’s office, a judge’s chamber for a waiver and the front
of the government building where the Rev. Peg Esperanza of the Church of the
Holy Spirit in Des Moines offered them the “short” vows she carried with her.
Ms. Keeton said the couple did not wish to wait even three days because she was
in the final trimester of a difficult pregnancy. The couple had parked in a lot
away from the recorder’s office, they said, in case there were crowds or
protesters or “hoopla.”
“Who would have known we didn’t need to?” Ms. Wolfe Keeton said.
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