For 7 Years, Activists Eyed a Seemingly Unlikely Target: Iowa
By Keith B. Richburg
NEW YORK -- For most of the country, the unanimous decision this month by the Iowa Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage was an unexpected and seemingly random victory for a movement that has long drawn its deepest support from major cities in liberal coastal states.
But for Camilla Taylor, a Chicago-based lawyer for the gay rights group Lambda Legal, it was the logical conclusion to a deliberate seven-year effort to make the Midwestern state one of the first in the country to allow same-sex marriage.
Coming just months after voters in California outlawed same-sex marriage, the decision was also a much-needed jolt for a group of loosely coordinated gay rights activists and legal experts who had been quietly building the case for marriage equality in states where they thought conditions were favorable, including Iowa and a handful in the Northeast.
"We were all deeply disappointed by the vote in California, but we were all hopeful for Iowa," said Taylor, a married mother who is not gay but calls same-sex marriage "the civil rights cause of my generation."
"I was brought up to think there's nothing more fulfilling than trying to achieve social change and do something right for society," added Taylor, a 38-year-old Cleveland native and Columbia Law School graduate.
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