Same-sex couples 
apply for marriage

About a month following the controversial Iowa Supreme Court decision declaring the ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, the Jasper County Recorder’s Office began accepting applications for marriage certificates from same-sex couples on Monday, receiving 10 applications as of noon Thursday.

New paperwork at the Jasper County Recorder’s Office includes a space to identify the gender of each member of the couple on the marriage license applications. Of the 10 same-sex couples who have applied, eight couples were women and two were male. All were from Newton, Colfax and Oakland Acres, except for two out-of-county couples, from Grinnell and Brooklyn.

Iowa has no residency requirement, so out-of-state gay couples can be married in Iowa as long as they either wait for three days after they get a marriage license or obtain a waiver from a county clerk of courts.

On April 3, in Varnum v. Brien, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously struck down a statutory same-sex marriage ban as unconstitutional, joining Massachusetts and Connecticut as the third state to grant the right of same-sex marriage under the state constitution. Vermont has since authorized the same-sex marriages.

For about five months in 2008, California also authorized same-sex marriages, until voters enacted Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state.