Sharon Malheiro, an attorney whose career of fighting “for the underdog” spanned decades and who secured some of the most significant civil rights victories in Iowa, died on Sunday night. Her death was announced on social media by One Iowa, the nonprofit advocacy organization for LGBTQ Iowans she co-founded in 2006. “Sharon’s legacy of service, […]
marriage equality
Posted inLetters
Letter from local faith leaders: Anti-LGBTQ legislation puts Iowans in danger
Submitted by David Borger Germann, Executive Pastor, Sanctuary Community Church Over the last seven weeks of the Iowa legislative session, numerous anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced. Bills restricting teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity as well as acknowledgement of gender identity without a parent’s permission are finding their way through our legislative processes. Legislation […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Remembering Varnum v. Brien, the case that brought marriage equality to Iowa
How a divorce helped kick-start marriage equality in Iowa By Paul Brennan The path to marriage equality in Iowa started with a divorce. Kimberly Brown and Jennifer Perez traveled from their home in western Iowa to Vermont in 2002 to be joined in a civil union, a substitute for traditional civic marriages Vermont created for […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘It rocked my world’: Catching up with the Grays, one of the first lesbian couples married in Iowa
Decades before Lois and Karen Gray became one of the first same-sex couples in Iowa to legally marry, they were Iowa farm girls, courting each other on the campus of Grand View College (now University) in Des Moines. In the mid-1980s, in fairly quick succession, the women became friends, then roommates, then girlfriends. This evolution […]
Posted inCommunity/News
A conversation with Kate and Trish Varnum, 10 years after Varnum v. Brien
Cedar Rapids couple Kate and Trish Varnum celebrate their 18th, 15th and 10th anniversaries this year: they’ve been together since 2001, had a religious marriage ceremony in 2004 and were legally married in 2009, after a landmark Iowa Supreme Court case that bore their name. Since the April 3, 2009 ruling in Varnum v. Brien, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
The BarbouRoskes, plaintiffs in Varnum v. Brien, reflect on Iowa’s fight for marriage equality
The day the Iowa Supreme Court announced they’d made a decision in Varnum v. Brien, the landmark case that would determine whether to legalize same-sex marriage in Iowa, Dawn and Jennifer BarbouRoskes’ two young daughters had covered their faces in temporary tattoos. “Jen’s at work and I’m scrubbing their faces,” Dawn recalled. “Bre had fallen […]
Posted inCommunity/News
How a divorce helped kick-start marriage equality in Iowa
The path to marriage equality in Iowa started with a divorce. Kimberly Brown and Jennifer Perez traveled from their home in western Iowa to Vermont in 2002 to be joined in a civil union, a substitute for traditional civic marriages Vermont created for same-sex couples in 2000.
Posted inCommunity/News
Complaint resolved against Iowa City’s Rev. Anna Blaedel for performing same-sex wedding
The United Methodist Church and Rev. Anna Blaedel, Executive Director and Campus Minister at the Wesley Center, have come to a “just resolution” of a complaint the church filed against Rev. Blaedel for officiating a same-sex wedding. The document, which both parties signed to end the complaint process, acknowledges differences of opinion in the church […]
