Amy ( 12 pages due by 24th OCT)

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Iowa and the Future of Gay Marriage in the United States

POLS 4499- Senior Seminar

Professor DeWitt

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Iowa's Gay Marriage Ruling & the Future of Gay Marriage in the U.S.

Introduction

The issue of gay marriage in the United States is one of the major legal and moral issues

of our time, and is possibly the most important civil rights issues since the 1960s Civil Rights

Movement. The issue first became a public one in 1993 after the Hawaiian Supreme Court ruled

that not issuing a marriage license to a same sex couple violated Hawaii's constitution. Because

the decision was based upon the lack of definition of marriage in the state constitution, Hawaiian

voters quickly passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage to be between a man and a

woman (Cherlin, 2004). But ever since then, the debate over whether two men or two women

should be allowed to marry one another has increased dramatically, from the issue being purely

one of activists, to it being a common topic among politicians, lawmakers, religious leaders,

media sources, and voters across America.

As the public became more aware of the issue of same-sex marriage and proponents and

opponents alike began to emerge, Americans began to fear that marriage between people of the

same sex would be a "threat to social stability" (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2011). Therefore, in

1996, the Federal Government passed the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA. This act stated

that marriages between same sex couple would not be recognized by the federal government for

public federal programs. Also the act stated States did not have to recognize marriages between

same sex couples if their own laws did not recognize it, as states would have to if the marriage

was between a man and a woman.

But despite federal actions and lack of public support for same-sex marriage, many states

have moved forward and are granting or recognizing homosexual couples' rights. The States that

allow same sex couples to have legal status as such include California, Colorado, Hawaii,

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Illinois, Maine, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin. In these states, same

sex couples are not "married" in the traditional sense, but instead are granted civil unions,

domestic partnerships, or are allowed to designate their significant other as beneficiaries. States

that actually allow, or will allow shortly, same sex couples to marry, or recognize their marriage

from other states include California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and

Iowa and the District of Columbia.

Of the states that allow marriage between same sex couples, Iowa is the most recent and

the most surprising. Most states on the Midwest are "red" states, voting conservatively in

Presidential elections and staying the heart of conservative America. Despite Iowa's tendency to

be a "blue" state in Presidential elections, most people would not associate it with being one of

the first states that grants same sex marriages. However, in April 2009, the Iowa State Supreme

Court ruled that an Iowa State statute that limited marriage to a union between a man and a

woman violated Iowa's Constitution in Varnum v. Brien. My research question is " How is

public reaction to the Iowa State Supreme Court ruling in Varnum v. Brien indicative of public

opinion on the issue of gay marriage and will it show a positive future for the issue?" Because

same sex marriage grows in importance every year, it is important to measure changes in trends

and indicators of the future of the issue.

Literature Review

Because the Varnum v. Brien case is the catalyst for this research, it is important to

evaluate the decision given by the Iowa State Supreme Court. This case first began in 2007

between six homosexual couples and the County Registrar of Polk County, Iowa. The couples

went to the registrar to get marriage certificates and were denied them because state law only

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allowed marriage between a man and a woman. The plaintiffs in the case argued that the statute

restricting marriage to a man and a woman made way for disadvantages and hardships with their

family. These included, "the legal inability to make many life and death decisions affecting their

partner including decisions related to health care" (Varnum v. Brien, 2009, pp 9). The county, in

response to the suit, gave five reasons for not allowing same sex marriage. These included

promoting procreation, promoting child rearing by a mother and father, promoting stability in

heterosexual relationships, conservation of state resources, and conserving the integrity of the

traditional marriage between a man and a woman. (Varnum v. Brien, pp10) The case made its

way to the state Supreme Court and the Iowa Justices agreed with the plaintiffs that the law

passed by the legislature banning marriage between two people of the same sex violated equal

rights guarantees of the Iowa constitution. The arguments of both the plaintiff and the

respondent are issues in the same sex marriage debate that come up frequently. Therefore, I plan

to use them as a part of the design model for my study as a method of determining social

acceptance of gay marriage and how the Iowa Supreme Court Opinion can be a major stepping

stone for gay rights cases in the future. I also will connect public opinion to the Iowa decision to

show that case like this in Iowa are important building blocks for gay rights in America.

Despite the arguments made by the Polk County attorney in this case, and recent efforts

in Iowa to change their state constitution regarding gay marriage, public opinion toward

homosexual relationships is not as negative as one might think. In 2007, when this case first

entered the lower courts, Gallup conducted its annual "Values and Beliefs" Survey of which

several questions pertained to same sex relationships and marriages. For the overall and highly

used question on the morality of homosexual relationships, the statistics are leveling out. It

showed that in 2007, 59% of the surveyed population believed that homosexual relations should

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be legal among consenting adults. This was part of an increase of approval of legal same sex

relationships since 2003 when it had begun to decrease until reaching 46 % approval, where

afterward it began to increase again. In the same study, the survey asked if marriages between

same sex couples should be recognized by the state laws with the same rights as marriages

between a man and woman. The results here showed that 53% of the public thought that they

should be valid, which increased from previous years, while 46 % of the public thought that they

should not be valid. With the same question posed in 2010 in another study by Gallup, the

numbers in opposition to validating same sex marriages dropped and average of 2 points in the

three years between the polls. While this poll is taken from a sample of people from across

America, it has a good chance of representing the feelings of Iowans as well and I believe I will

find similar results when I survey the people.

Since the Varnum case in 2009, there have been many efforts to undo what the State

Supreme Court did. As Michael Klarman of the Los Angeles Times stated in an article in 2010,

"When courts advance social reform more quickly than public opinion supports, political

backlashes often ensue." (Klarman, 2010, para. 5) This was most clearly seen in 2010 in Iowa

when three of the justices involved in the Varnum case were dismissed from the Iowa Supreme

Court because they took part in the original decision in 2009 and in 2011 when the Iowa House

voted on an amendment to the Iowa Constitution banning gay marriage. This seems a bit unusual

given previous statistics, but keeping in mind the quote from Klarman, it rings true. When a

decision like gay marriage arises, the people that are extremely passionate about it come out and

start fighting it. There was a large number of Iowans that felt that the Varnum decision was an

example of the court overstepping their boundaries. But just because a large number in

opposition came to vote only means they represent those who voted, not the majority of the

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opinion. In fact, when people are in approval of something, they tend not to go vote. The real

numbers, according to The DesMoines Register, on the issue has divided people about half, with

forty one percent saying they would vote for a ban, forty percent say they would keep gay

marriage as the court decided, and the rest would not vote or were not sure of the decision. In

the same poll taken by the DesMoines Register, the public was asked if their lives had been

affected by gay marriage. Ninety two percent said that there had been no real change. To me,

these polls show me that the importance of gay marriage as an individual issue is simmering

down. While there are going to be parties that are always against gay marriage, I think the main

opposition is low. I also believe the spikes in opposition to same sex relationships and marriages

are due to a change in voter turnout and an increase in possible interest group activity. With

decisions that carry such large changes such as gay marriage, there are bound to be many

working hard against it and interest groups will fuel the efforts. Then, the voters go to the polls

believing the things they hear the most from the opponents and vote from what they think they

should, instead of what they believe.

Although there is resistance to further same sex marriage and gay rights in the United

States, a decision like Varnum v. Brien can work against that resistance. In a Time Magazine

article by Michael Lindenberger, the author states that the Iowa decision could be good for other

states facing same sex marriage challenges, such as California, a state in which the issue is being

volleyed back and forth between people and government. It could mean that if more Supreme

Courts begin interpreting State Constitutions the way Iowa's did, then state governments may be

less prone to attempt to add bans to gay marriage, which could lead to further advances across

more states for homosexual couples. The article highlights the fact that religious beliefs should

not be a factor when making legal decisions such as these.

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Because this research will focus on the attitudes towards and affects of changing policies

on gay marriage in Iowa, it is important to look at other research addressing other states during

policy change. The first is a study called Attitudes Toward Gay Marriage in State Undergoing

Marriage Law Transformation by Stacey M. Brumbaugh, Laura A. Sanchez, Steven L. Nock,

and James D. Wright. In this study, the authors collected data from telephone surveys in three

states that were undergoing transformations in marriage laws: Louisiana, Arizona, and

Minnesota. The legislatures of these states were debating marriage promotions efforts and

considering covenant marriage (Brumbaugh et al, p 346) in which marriage between men and

women would be promoted and restrictions would be greater.

The study researched attitudes of heterosexuals towards the issue of same sex from three

vantage points. The first vantage point was from sociodemographic characteristics. This

included characteristics such as gender, race, age, education, and socioeconomic status. The

second vantage point was "how marriage, cohabitation, and parenthood histories are associated

with support or opposition for gay marriage" (p 349). The third vantage point was religiosity,

political orientation, and marriage and family policy attitudes. With this the researchers made

five hypotheses. First they hypothesized that sociodemographic characteristics would influence

attitudes toward gay marriage, with women, Whites, and younger people being more supportive

of gay marriage than men, Blacks, and older people (p 349). Second, they hypothesized that

people that live in states that have passed laws promoting traditional marriage or covenant

marriage laws are more negative towards gay marriage. Thirdly, the authors hypothesized that

people that are married and have children are more likely to oppose gay marriage, where as

people that are not married and have lived with a significant other (not married) would be more

supportive of gay marriage. The fourth hypothesis was that religiosity was negatively associated

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with support of gay marriage. The fifth hypothesis was that political conservatism is associated

with negative support of gay marriage. The first, third, fourth, and fifth hypotheses were

strongly supported by their research, where as research for the second hypothesis showed no

great significance.

This study is important to the research in Iowa because it will provide comparison

between a state that has passed laws in support of same sex marriage versus a state that has

passed anti-gay marriage laws. Also, using many of the sociodemographic characteristics from

this study for residents in Iowa will allow the population of this study to be indicative of the

population of the United States.

At present, Iowan politicians and interest groups are trying to pass an amendment to the

State constitution to ban gay marriage. This has already happened in South Carolina, the state in

which the study Community Context, Personal Contact, and Support for an Anti-Gay Rights

Referendum by Jay Barth, L. Marvin Overby, and Scott H. Huffmon is focused. This study

provides an interesting contrast to the proposed study in Iowa because the state of South Carolina

is nearly a perfect opposite to the state of Iowa. While South Carolina is one of the most

politically conservative states in the U.S., Iowa is generally one of the more liberal states. In this

study, the authors hypothesize that context, or being in a community with significant homosexual

populations will not have an effect on attitudes towards a gay marriage referendum, because

contact with people in same-sex relationships will be more indicative of feelings. Also, they

hypothesized that not all contact with homosexuals has the same affect. Their research

supported their hypothesis with all types of contact having positive effects on support for gay

rights, some types of contact, such familial connections, more so (Barth et. al., p. 361).

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The issues that have arisen in Iowa and the same sex marriage issue that have been tested

by many of these studies include social acceptance, stability of relationships between

homosexuals, as well as stability of children's homes, and worries of conserving the tradition of

marriage. While the government in Iowa believes that these things can be affected negatively, it

seems that not everyone agrees. In an article called Same Sex Marriage and Negative

Externalities, the researchers take three theories of opposition to gay marriage and examine

them. The first theory states that gay allowing gay marriage will decrease overall marriage

between men and women. The second theory claims that gay marriage will increase divorce

rates. The third states that gay marriage will lessen the importance of procreation in marriage.

(Langbein & Yost, 2009) The study showed that allowing gay marriage did not have an adverse

affect on any of these things. While it did show increase in divorce rate, it is only to be expected

if there are more marriages, whether they be between two men, two women, or a man and a

woman.

Hypotheses

From these variables and method stated above, I have identified three hypotheses.

Hypothesis 1: The sociodemographic characteristics such as age, gender, education, will

affect Iowans' opinion and support of the state Supreme Court ruling in Varnum v. Brien. I

believe that younger, single/divorced/separated, White, and female participants will be more

favorable toward the decision than older, married, Black, and male participants will be.

Hypothesis 2: The participants that show favor to the Varnum v. Brien will be greater

than participants that do not approve of the Varnum v. Brien decision, indicating the Iowans

overall approve of gay marriage.

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Hypothesis 3: The participants that are younger, and in support of the Varnum v. Brien

decision will show favorable attitudes to more pro-gay marriage and gay rights laws in the future

in the United States as a whole.

Methodology

For the design of my research, I plan on forming a set of questions to present to the

participant that will include many of the issues that have come up in Iowa and the same sex

marriage issue, including social acceptance, stability in relationships between partners, as well as

with children, and worries of conserving the tradition of marriage. Based on previous research

and reports from Iowan news sources, I have identified the dependent and independent variables

that will be examined. The dependent variables will be Iowans' approval of the State Supreme

court decision and their attitude toward future pro-gay marriage laws in the United States.

Previous research used sociodemographic characteristics, marital status, relationship

experiences, political orientation, religion, and contact with homosexuals as variables to measure

attitudes toward gay marriage by. For the research to take place in Iowa, independent variables

will gender, race, age, education, socioeconomic status, marital status, religious affiliation,

frequency of attendance at religious services, party identification, and political orientation.

Other independent variable will include attitudes toward social behaviors and norms found in

today's society and whether the individual's being polled has had experience with them. This

would include behaviors such as living with a significant other (non-spouse) outside marriage

and raising children outside marriage. As previous research stated, these behaviors could

indicate positive or negative feelings toward the gay marriage issue.

To measure these variables to I will conduct a telephone survey of registered voters in the

State of Iowa. To ensure an adequate representation of voters across the United States, I will

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create my statistical population from 500 registered Republican Voters, 500 registered voters,

250 registered non-partisan voters, and 250 registered voters with party identified as "other"

from the state of Iowa. The phone survey will be a series of questions posed to participants

beginning with general questions with the purpose of identifying characteristics of the voter.

These questions would include age, gender, race, education, and self-identified socioeconomic

status, whether they participated in the previous statewide election and presidential election, and

other such questions to satisfy the independent variables. The questions would then be more

subjective. I will ask participants of their approval of the State Supreme Court decision. This

will be measured on a 5 point scale: strongly approve, approve, no opinion, disapprove, and

strongly disapprove. For those that strongly approve and approve, they will then be asked what

makes them feel this way: Do they think everyone should have the same rights? Do they feel that

the there is no reason not to? Or do they feel some other reason for approving. Participants that

disapprove or strongly disapprove of the decision will also be asked why they feel this way.

Participants would choose from, answers such as "I disapprove on moral grounds", "I disapprove

because of religious reasons", and "I disapprove for political reasons". Questions will then focus

on the future of the gay marriage issue. Participants will be asked if they think the federal

government should pass a law or if the United States Supreme Court should make a ruling on

gay marriage in the United States that would be applicable to all states. Participants would also

be asked what sort of time frame they would think reasonable for a law like this to come about.

This would be important because participants that do not approve of gay marriage now may

think that it would be acceptable at a different point in time.

Conclusion and Implications

The issue of gay marriage in the United States is one of the most important issues of our

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time. Every year, the debate grows, becomes more heated, and more important. Although the

United States Supreme Court has yet to give its opinion on the matter, the federal government

and many state governments have decided to make laws in favor of or against gay marriage.

With Hawaii as the leader, states such as South Carolina and Louisiana have created laws that

completely ban gay marriage or the recognition of it or laws that make traditional marriage more

important. The United States Federal Government also passed DOMA, or the Defense of

Marriage Act, so that states would not be bound to recognized same sex marriages from other

states and so that same sex couples would not be able to receive benefits for partners from the

federal government. All of these efforts are against pro-gay marriage activists' arguments of

equal protection under the law, and full faith and credit between states.

But as the years move on, support for gay marriage is changing. The 2009 Iowa Supreme

Court decision in Varnum v. Brien is possibly indicative of this. Unlike most Midwestern states

which are politically conservative, Iowa is a politically liberal state and could be considered a

"deep blue" state. Iowa is also a surprising state to be leading pro-gay marriage laws in the

United States. If such an unexpected state can have a decision that allows a gay marriage, what

is there to say that other unlikely states will not do likewise? Based on previous research and

examination of local news in Iowa, it can be hypothesized that Iowans generally approve of gay

marriage and that the public opinion of Iowans toward gay marriage will indicate favorable

results for the issue in the future. Through the research design as outlined, I believe that

important information can be gathered on how public opinion towards gay marriage has changed,

how it will continue to change, and how gay marriage will be a legally accepted norm in the

future for United States citizens.

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References

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365. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Brumbaugh, S. M., Sanchez, L. A., Nock, S. L., & Wright, J. D. (2008). Attitudes toward Gay

Marriage in States Undergoing Marriage Law Transformation. Journal of Marriage &

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