Attorneys for the lesbian couple at the center of this case say the women are “relieved” by the court’s decision and felt their case had been “exploited for political gain.” An attorney with the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project says the court ruling is a “clear message” to “anti-gay activists that they have no business interfering in cases that don’t concern them.” Ben Stone, a spokesman for the Iowa Civil Liberties Union, says his group is pleased by the ruling. “The ICLU believes that the…decision is a great victory for privacy here in Iowa,” Stone says. “The court has recognized that politicians really don’t have any business trying to interfere in a private matter between two people who are trying to deal with their breakup.” Stone says the court got it right when it said the lesbian “divorce” had no impact on other people’s marriages.
“Allowing two women to dissolve their relationship that they created in another state doesn’t threaten anybody,” Stone says. “It doesn’t threaten people who are married. It doesn’t threaten our way of life.”
Stone says there’s a long-standing separation of powers in government — legislators pass laws and the courts interpret them and he says this ruling maintains that “balance.”