ACLU of Iowa Lauds Marriage Equality Decision

DES MOINES, IA – The following statement can be attributed to ACLU of Iowa Executive Director Jeremy Rosen. He can be reached for further comment at 515-243-3988 or jeremy.rosen@aclu-ia.org. He also will be speaking at the OneIowa victory rally today at 5:30 on the west Iowa Capitol steps.

“It has been a long and winding road to marriage equality. In 1936, the ACLU brought its first LGBT rights case. Then In 1976, the ACLU of Iowa brought what we believe was the first marriage equality lawsuit in this state. We filed a petition on behalf of Tracy Bjorgum and Kenneth Bunch, two men who were denied a marriage license in Polk County. The petition was unsuccessful, but it was the opening round in a long struggle toward marriage equality.

In 2009, we filed a friend-of-court brief in the historic Varnum v. Brien, which made Iowa one of the first states to recognize marriage equality.

Now, 39 years later, the ACLU is seeing national victory for marriage equality in the U.S. Supreme Court, serving as counsel in the Ohio (Obergefell v. Hodges) and Kentucky (Bourke v. Beshear and Love v. Beshear) cases.

This is a momentous win for freedom, equality, inclusion, and above all, love. We can celebrate that ours is a country that keeps its promise of the pursuit of happiness, liberty, and justice for all.Yet there remains much more work to be done. We will continue to fight for an Iowa and a country in which LGBTQ people can live openly and identities, relationships, and families are respected, and where there is fair treatment on the job and in schools, housing, public places, and health care.”