Gay marriage opponents 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.
Full Story from the Sioux City Journal
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