The Sioux City Council has voted to table a resolution opposing same-sex marriage.
The vote to table the issue was 3-2 and Sioux City Mayor Mike Hobart was in the majority. "Now I appreciate individuals who are in favor of the traditional definition of marriage and are against gay marriage and I am one of those, but I don’t believe that the city council is the place to be expressing those views," Hobart said during an interview with KSCJ Radio.
A town hall forum hosted by gay marriage advocates will be held tonight at a public library in Sioux City. That event is what prompted a Sioux City councilman to offer the resolution yesterday during the city council meeting.
A gay couple from Sioux City is among the six couples who filed a lawsuit in 2005, trying to overturn the state law which bans same-sex marriage. Just last week, the Iowa Supreme Court heard lawyers on both sides of the case present their legal arguments.
In December of 2003, a district court judge in Sioux City granted a divorce to two women who had obtained a "civil union" in Vermont. In November of 2004, Jeffrey Neary — the judge who ruled on that gay divorce case –won a retention election on a 58 to 42 vote. By mid-2005 the Iowa Supreme Court had ruled on the case, rejecting the lawsuit filed by a group of conservative lawmakers who wanted the court to overturn the divorce. The court ruled the group of politicians had no legal right to try to intervene in the matter.
(Randy Renshaw from KSCJ in Sioux City contributed to this report.)