Study: Gay marriage isn't a threat in Iowa

Although experts say a single year does not constitute a trend, they say the disparity is consistent with the traditional way Americans raise children and establish their gender roles early in life. The disparity also reflects similar trends in other states where same-sex marriages are allowed.

Thousands of same sex couples married during that period, and despite the controversy that has swirled around them, their marriages have endured.

For many, the marriage license provided a slice of American life previously denied to them. For others, the license, because legal limitations remain, is just recognition of relationships already tested by time, legal obstacles and social ostracism.

"It's suitable for framing," said Ellen Lewin, a sociology professor at the University of Iowa, who married her same-sex spouse in Iowa.

Researchers have studied the meaning and characteristics of same-sex unions for decades. Rather than examining the nature of gay marriage to determine the merit of opponents' arguments, the public debate has focused mostly on opponents' charge that gay marriage will destroy traditional marriage and proponents arguing that gay couples deserve equal rights.

'We live pretty boring lives'

The Iowa Supreme Court ruling in favor of gay marriage was unanimous, but the opposition has persisted because it is fueled by fears that that the family, the bedrock of American society, is at stake.

"They shouldn't be allowed to marry," Maggie Gallagher, chairman for the National Organization for Marriage, said in an e-mail. "They shouldn't be allowed to redefine marriage to mean whatever relationship (they) choose."

In sharp contrast, married gays often depict a lifestyle and relationship that seems suburban stable, only now they have a marriage license like other couples.

"Not much has changed," said Ledon Sweeney of Iowa City, who married his partner of 12 years. "We live pretty boring lives. We go to work; we mow our lawn, we pay our mortgage, and we go on vacation if we can save enough money."

Four other states -- New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut -- allow gay marriage. Nationwide, support has been inching up in polls, with an Aug. 10 CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll giving proponents a 49 percent score nationwide.

Now, Iowa moves into national focus because the country will see what voters in a state known for corn and hogs say about gays getting married. Their megaphones are two high profile elections.

One is the gubernatorial campaign between Democratic Gov. Chet Culver and Republican challenger Terry Branstad, who along with social conservatives hopes to win enough legislative seats to get a vote to allow a referendum on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages.

In the other campaign, three of the state Supreme Court justices are fending off retention challenges led by anti-gay marriage forces.

The angst over marriage in Iowa comes after year in which the state of marriage has made a turn toward statistical bliss: More people got married and fewer split up.

Divorces declined to 7,286, the lowest per capita level since 1968, according to 2009 provisional and historical data from the Iowa Department of Public Health.

The health department's statistics also suggest gay marriage is not a trend on the fringe. Of the 19,204 couples who bought licenses to marry during the year ending March 31, one out of 10 were gay. In Pottawattamie and Johnson counties, the ratio was one out four. The marriages occurred in 21 of Iowa's 99 counties.

Dissonance on a national stage

In Iowa, the disharmony over matrimony began almost five years ago when six same-sex couples, who had been together five to 15 years, applied for marriage licenses in Polk County and were denied. One couple had two small children. Three were men, including one couple who were state licensed foster parents. It was these complaints that reached the Iowa Supreme Court and ignited the controversy.

To add to the political cacophony, earlier this month Chief U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker struck down Proposition 8 in California, overturning a referendum that had banned same-sex marriage. The ruling will be reviewed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and might go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Although gay rights advocates say the ruling creates judicial momentum that will carry to other states, opponents say it just energized the referendum forces in Iowa.

Approaches to marriage: similarities and one peculiar statistic

One of the experts cited in Walker's ruling, Lee Badgett, research director of the UCLA Law School's Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, told IowaWatch that the meaning of marriage for gays and heterosexuals is clear.

But the fact that lesbians make up nearly two-thirds of same-sex couples poses somewhat of a mystery to researchers. The proportion is way out of line with the 2000 census figures showing lesbians made up 49 percent of unmarried same-sex couples. That pattern follows in other gay-marriage states.

So why do more American lesbians marry than gay men?

Some experts think it goes back to the way American culture raises children. Long before children know about sexual orientation, society begins foisting gender roles on them, said Mimi Schippers, associate professor of sociology at Tulane University.

Tradition dictates that women desire marriage more than men, she said.

"Girls are raised pretty from the moment they become consciously aware to think about marriage, to desire marriage and to see marriage as a goal," Schippers said.

Men, on the other hand, are socialized to be reluctant to marry, said Stephanie Coontz, of Evergreen State College in Washington and author of numerous books on marriage, its history and myths.

Figures from the 2000 census show that 33 percent of lesbian households have a child compared with 22 percent of same-sex male couples.

A lack of 'bullet-proof' rights

The disparity also has an economic explanation: Men make more money than women, and gay men across the Atlantic, whose marriages enjoy national recognition, have greater financial incentive to marry than do gay men in America, where federal law doesn't recognize same-sex marriages, said Esther Rothblum, a professor of women's studies at San Diego State University.

In a 2005 article for the Journal of LGBT studies, Rothblum wrote that the lack of federal recognition makes state-level marriage largely symbolic. Because women have a greater desire to marry and have children, a symbolic marriage might have more attraction for them.

The overwhelming majority of an estimated 1,300 specific rights, benefits and privileges that marriage delivers to couples come from the federal government. Same-sex couples can file joint state tax returns, for example, but have to file separate federal tax returns.