When Sean Fritz and Tim McQuillan woke up last Friday morning, they had a goal in mind. Because of the ruling by Polk County District Judge Robert Hanson on Thursday that allowed same-sex marriages in the state of Iowa, a door was now open for a future that they had been looking forward to.

Originally planning to be married within the next two summers, when Sean heard the ruling, he proposed to Tim on the spot. As it turns out, this opportunity seized was the first step by the couple toward an event that will be historically marked as the first legal gay marriage in Iowa.

The basis for this most current ruling was a lawsuit filed by six couples who were denied marriage licenses in 2005 because of their sexual orientation. While it would seem that this year’s bill made it clear that discrimination is intolerable, the fight for marriage continued in court.

Two years after filing their lawsuit, those couples – and many others – were finally rewarded with Judge Hanson’s decision to allow gay marriages last week, only to have the ruling stayed a day later. In that short amount of time, because of the three-day waiting period applied to licenses, none of the original couples in the lawsuit were able to be wed. But Sean and Tim were.

After having a waiver signed, they were able to bypass the waiting period and be married as early as 10:30 Friday morning in a local reverend’s front yard.

Because of the nature of their marriage, Sean and Tim willingly allowed press coverage of their ceremony and gave interviews, but plan on a private ceremony for their families and friends at a later date.

While neither is politically active about the issue, the implications of being the only same-sex couple in Iowa are overwhelming and a little hard to ignore. After their weekend honeymoon, the couple went to church and encountered another couple who had attempted to be married on Friday, but were unable to because of the stay.

“It pains us that they were not allowed to become full citizens and join us as a legally married couple. We think, despite the fact neither Tim nor I are activists for this issue, that we have an ethical obligation to the other deserving couples to help progress the matter,” noted Sean in an e-mail.

At the present, Polk County Attorney John Sarcone is working on an appeal to Judge Hanson’s ruling that will be brought to the Iowa Supreme Court. In the meantime, many of us will sit and hope that they come to the same conclusion as Judge Hanson: that gender is not an applicable excuse for discrimination in the eyes of the law.

Gay, or same-sex, marriages have been a hot topic in our country’s moral debates, trickling down to state-level legislatures in the form of anti-discrimination activism. Earlier this year, Iowa became one of 19 states to pass legislation protecting the civil rights of gay individuals, but holes in the legal system still remain.

While Gov. Chet Culver readily signed that nondiscrimination bill, he still openly voiced his opposition to letting gay couples marry. Conflicts like these in our lawmakers promote a division in the people of Iowa and their ideals.

As much as they’d like their lives and decisions to be less of a spectacle, Sean and Tim are still concerned: “What truly troubles us are our fellow Iowans who support us but, either out of fear or apathy, remain silent.”

Now, more than ever, the citizens of our state need to stay firm, and loud, in their support for equal rights.

After the next ruling, Tim and Sean may happily find themselves in less of a special position, when other gay couples can stand beside them and claim their civil rights and protections equally.

As a final touch to our e-mail correspondence, Fritz added, “We’re a committed couple that’s deeply in love. We’re very happy to be married, and we hope the other deserving couples are allowed to pursue happiness.”

Well, that doesn’t seem like too much to ask for.

– Luci Van Scoy is a junior in anthropology from Newton.