Marriage issue draws more legislative scrutiny

DES MOINES – Traditional marriage defenders said Friday they plan to read proposed bills more closely from now on to make sure language legalizing same-sex marriage does not make its way into Iowa law surreptitiously.

Their heightened awareness was triggered by a situation earlier this week when the state Department of Revenue's tax policy cleanup bill included proposed gender-neutral language regarding married couples in the state tax code – replacing references to “husband and wife” with terms like “married persons” or “spouse” as appropriate to the context.

Department officials said provisions they included in Senate Study Bill 3200 that dealt with marriage were an attempt to conform Iowa's tax code to case law language stemming from last April's Iowa Supreme Court ruling. That decision struck down a 1998 statute defining marriage as only between one man and one woman, paving the way for civil marriages of same-sex couples.

Revenue agency officials already have incorporated revised language in Iowa's 2009 tax forms that allows same-sex couples to file jointly or separately on a joint return and receive the same tax benefits as opposite-gender couples, but the proposed legislative change would have marked the first time that same-sex marriage language would show up in state law.

Majority Democrats on the tax-policy subcommittee requested a redrafted Senate Study Bill 3234 version that removed the marriage language, but leaders of the Iowa Family Policy Center Action said they viewed the episode as a back-door attempt to “sneak” same-sex marriage into statute.

“This looks like one of those sneaky little ways of changing the code when nobody's paying attention,” said center spokesman Bryan English.

Danny Carroll, a former House member from Grinnell and chairman of the IFPC Action board, issued a statement Friday saying the Supreme Court handed down “an unconstitutional opinion that overstepped the parameters of judicial authority” by creating a new legal definition of marriage. He said lawmakers should not “bow down to an out-of-control court” by “attempting to sneak through key language changes that would effectively redefine marriage in Iowa.”

Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said the yearly tax policy cleanup bill was drafted by revenue department officials diligently seeking to be thorough in keeping the tax code updated and was not the product of legislative secrecy.

“It's preposterous. With all due respect to former Rep. Carroll, he's just simply wrong about this,” he said.

“Gay people are getting married and can get married today,” Bolkcom said. “We have to anticipate that those folks are going to want to file their tax returns like other married couples have and the Department of Revenue is responding to that. There's no great conspiracy here.”

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