How's this for a headline?
Missouri couples head to Iowa City to marry
Our local paper has a charming story today on a group that is planning to come north and enjoy the liberties we all deserve.
When Ed Reggi and his partner, Scott Emanuel, got engaged, both said "we want to get a bus," Reggi said. Instead of coming to Iowa on their own to get married, the St. Louis couple decided to come to Iowa City with other committed gay and lesbian couples. The couple organized the "Show Me Marriage Equality Bus," which will depart from St. Louis at 6 a.m. May 1 for Iowa City, where the couples will obtain marriage licenses and head to a non-denominational space for more personal ceremonies. Fourteen couples are signed on to ride the bus, but there is room for 20 couples if more are interested, he said.
Join me over the fold ---
There will be Missouri clergy on the bus, but since they can't officiate in Iowa there will be Iowa clergy meeting the merry mob. The plan is to stop at the county recorder's office, get licences, and then head to more congenial settings for the weddings. We have a three day waiting period here, but that can be waived fairly easily (though it would be fun to have this crew hanging around making us all merry for three days). A little more from the initiator:
Reggi said some of the couples who will be joining them already see themselves as married, while others are engaged and started planning a wedding. Reggi and Emanuel have been together for a decade, he said. Although other states started to allow same-sex marriages before Iowa, Reggi said he didn't feel "connected" to those states. "When it came down, I just can't say how much closer I feel connected," he said about his fellow Midwestern state. "It happened in such a way -- it was unanimous. It was a decisive decision."
I'm delighted they are heading to Iowa City and hope many more follow. If anyone knows of other adventurers heading to Iowa, let me know and I will add them.
A longer version is in the Riverfront Times of St. Louis. Here's an excerpt:
After the Iowa court's ruling, he came upon the idea of a bus trip, which he dubbed the "Show Me Marriage Equality Tour." He proceeded to post a message on his website that invited other couples to come along.
"At first, responses were trickling in," he recalls. "Then people were signing up on Facebook, on Twitter — people from everywhere in the state were like, 'Count me in.' From everywhere, Poplar Bluff, Cape Girardeau. They were like, 'Bring the bus near us,' 'Make a stop in Joplin,' 'Don't forget St. Joseph.' It was pretty amazing."
The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at UCLA estimated in a 2005 study that more than 14,700 same-sex couples reside in Missouri, and that nearly 161,000 residents identify themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual.
Standard disclaimer: I didn't see this posted. If it's a duplicate let me know and I'll delete. I just thought it made for happy news on a spring day.
From the comments a wonderful video on marriage equality:
and great resources for the practical side of getting married.
Just a quick reminder from Carroll, Iowa of how Iowa has led in defending human rights:
In 1839, in the first reported case of the Supreme Court of Iowa, judges refused to treat a human being as property to enforce a contract for slavery and held that Iowa's laws must extend to people of all skin colors. That Iowa decision was 17 years before the U.S. Supreme Court decided in one of the most infamous cases in American history that the slave Dred Scott was just that - and had no standing to sue. "They (Iowa territorial judges) were ahead of the U.S. Supreme Court," said Mark Kende, the James Madison professor in constitutional law at Drake University in Des Moines.
It is clear to some legal scholars and other observers of Hawkeye State life and law that the recent Iowa Supreme Court decision allowing gay marriage didn't just happen by accident or at the ideological whim of the seven jurists on the high court. "No matter who the judges are they would have had to look at that history in Iowa," Kende said. Iowa was the first state in the nation to admit a woman to practice law, and two decisions, in 1868 and 1873, challenged the concept of segregation.