The Republican sponsor of a state Senate bill that could make it harder to get a divorce had the good sense to pull it for revisions after hearing how it could harm those in abusive marriages. The bill, introduced by Sen. Jesse Green of Boone, would add an optional “fault” provision for those getting married. Since the early ‘70s, Iowa has had a standard no-fault divorce law.
But the fact that Senate File 2172 was submitted in the first place, without even rudimentary consideration of gender-based power differentials, is yet another warning sign of Iowa’s backward slide for women —and how easily we can be exploited without the necessary guardrails.
Why would anyone choose to reinstitute the archaic blaming and shaming requirements of prevailing divorces? Just imagine the potential payback from an abusive spouse if the one initiating a divorce had to share evidence of adultery, a felony conviction, or sexual or physical abuse?
Actually the demand isn’t coming from Iowa’s rank and file but from a Washington D.C.-based conservative think tank. The Heritage Foundation laid out a blueprint for the Trump administration even before his latest election, and some of the most far fetched moves already made under him correspond precisely with its recommendations in Project 2025. From bringng down Nicolas Maduro (page 181) to funding private schools with taxpayer dollars for public schools to scrapping school vaccine mandates, it’s all spelled out.
And Iowa is doing its part to comply, with a flurry of punitive legislation that would turn the clock back on women, children, low-income and underrepresented groups. As lawmakers waste time debating sputious bills, we’re facing a major school-funding shortfall and a rising cancer rate, among other things.
I highlight the marriage bill, amidst the plethora of regressive ones on the table, to demonstrate how the current legislative majority is determined to force tenets of the religious right into everyone’s everyday life despite the prohibition on mingling church and state. The couple’s pledge not to divorce would be filed with the county registrar, but the bill offers no rationale for handing the government power to keep married couples together.
In fact, the bill generated about twice as much opposition as support from registered lobbyists. As Laura Hessburg, a lobbyist for the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence, put it, the bill “legally enables abusive partners to keep spouses trapped in dangerous relationships.”
Gov. Terry Branstad denounced Iowa’s no-fault divorce law in 1996, and a “covenant marriage” law backed by the founder of the religious right’s Iowa Family Policy Center was proposed four years later, but lacked support.
But Chuck Hurley, a lobbyist for The Family Leader, recently told The Des Moines Register he sees a “desperate need” for “strengthening the importance, gravity and permanence of marriage.”
A desperate need? Iowa’s divorce rate is low: 6.5 per 1,000 Iowans age15 and older in 2023, placing us 33rd place among the states. Divorces here have been on the decline. But the efforts to rewrite history under the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint would essentially impose a moral dictum, negating the civil rights movement, feminism, bodily autonomy and gay pride, The foundation bills its Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise as “the work of the entire conservative movement” And it lists as its top priority, to “Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.”
To that end, all federal programs would have to pass a test for how they affect “stable, married, nuclear families.” On page 479, there’s a call for “strengthening marriage and discouraging divorce,” by cutting federal funds for programs supporting single mothers and diverting them to “marriage education” (also referred to as “marriage bootcamps”). It would increase tax credits for families with three or more children, and incentives for people to marry young. And all federal policies that promote LGBTQ equality or support non-traditional family structures would be scrapped.
Here’s how the National Women’s Law Center describes the mission: “to impose a hierarchal, gendered, patriarchal vision of society,” focusing on a family model “that relies on fixed and narrowly defined gender roles, and undermining protections that enable women and LGBTQI+ people to thrive outside of a male-dominated, heterosexual family.”
As to the part about “protecting our children,” Project 2025 specifically rejects school vaccination mandates, calling them “irrational, destructive, un-American” (p. 283), and saying, “… never again should CDC officials be allowed to say in their official capacity that school children “should be” masked or vaccinated.”
Iowa was once ahead of the game in passing same sex marriage, allowing interracial marriages and requiring gender balance on state boards and commissions. Now it’s ahead of the game in stripping rights from transgender and nonbinary people, and doing away with gender balance. An unthinkable ban on all abortions is now under consideration, with doctors who provide them subject to draw life sentences.
One bill wants to end school vaccination requirements. Another would allow discredited “conversion therapy” for gay and lesbian youth. And local governments would be barred from setting their own civil rights protections for transgender and nonbinary people. Gov. Reynold also wants to deny bail to any undocumented immigrant. The list goes on.
It’s not just Iowa politicians who are succumbing. Such moves are being proposed in other states too. But as someone who moved here 35 years ago and has cheered along as Iowa grew in diversity and inclusivity, passed laws and policies demanding accountability for domestic violence and sexual assault, and made efforts to bring down the glass ceiling and get more women elected, this backslide is heartbreaking.
I know politics are cyclical and this isn’t the end of the story because enough Iowans won’t let it be. I take heart in the activism of multiple established organizations and ad hoc groups. I get a kick out of a progressive team called “Bitches Get Stuff Done.” Sometimes scary times demand nontraditional responses. The good news is that in big ways and small, people are organizing to save democracy.
Finally, all this talk of marriage leads us to Valentines Day, which is tomorrow, and I wish you all a happy one. If you’re with a partner, I hope you celebrate the totality of the person you chose -- their autonomy and ability to think for themselves, challenge you when necessary and make you laugh and have your back when the times demand it. Not because a registrar is holding some binding contract, or a patriarchal think tank wants us to return us to sterotypical old roles, but because that’s love.
And let’s keep pushing back against all this nonsense.
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