Varnum V. Brien - Iowa Supreme Court Ruling

Iowa Supreme Court Ruling

Polk County appealed Hanson's ruling to the Iowa Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on December 9, 2008. There were 24 amicus curiae briefs filed with the court. In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Mark S. Cady, the Court affirmed Hanson's decision on April 3, 2009.

The Supreme Court initially stated its duty to protect the right of individuals:

Our responsibility, however, is to protect constitutional rights of individuals from legislative enactments that have denied those rights, even when the rights have not yet been broadly accepted, were at one time unimagined, or challenge a deeply ingrained practice or law viewed to be impervious to the passage of time.

The Court noted that Iowa has a long history of progressive thought on civil rights. Seventeen years before the Dred Scott decision, the Iowa Supreme Court "refused to treat a human being as property to enforce a contract for slavery and held our laws must extend equal protection to persons of all races and conditions." Eighty-six years before "separate but equal" was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled such practices unconstitutional in Iowa. In 1869, Iowa was the first state in the union to admit women to the bar and allow them to practice law. Three years later the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the State of Illinois' decision to deny women admission to the bar.

The Court stated that the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution requires that laws treat alike all those who are similarly situated with respect to the purposes of the law, and concluded that homosexual persons are similarly situated compared to heterosexual persons for purposes of Iowa's marriage laws. The Court applied the standard of review known as intermediate scrutiny to assess the government's objectives as described by the county: maintaining traditional marriage, promotion of an optimal environment to raise children, promotion of procreation, promotion of stability in opposite-sex relationships and conservation of resources. The Court concluded that:

We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective. The legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification. There is no material fact, genuinely in dispute, that can affect this determination.

But the court noted the national development of gay rights in both Lawrence v. Texas and Romer v. Evans, and it cited discussion in these cases as evidence of a history of discrimination against gays and lesbians. Because plaintiffs brought a state constitutional claim, the state Supreme Court was not constrained by federal precedents, and the decision was not subject to review by a federal court.

On April 27, 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court issued a procedendo directing the Iowa District Court for the County of Polk to "proceed in the manner required by law and consistent with the opinion of the court." The court's decision became effective with the issuance of the procedendo.