On this day in 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously that same-sex couples had the constitutional right to marry — making Iowa the third state in the nation, and the first in the Midwest, to legalize same-sex marriage. What made this moment different was the location: Iowa was no coastal liberal enclave. It was corn country, church country, a state that had voted Republican in six of the previous seven presidential elections. When justices from that state read a 69-page ruling declaring that "our constitution's promise of equal protection" demands marriage equality, it sent a message that this wasn't a coastal issue, it was an American one. The Iowa decision became a powerful legal and moral argument that marriage equality advocates used in courts across the country for the next six years, all the way to Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015. A unanimous court in Des Moines helped change the nation.
What place, institution, or person surprised you by becoming an unexpected champion for LGBTQ+ rights — somewhere or someone you never expected to stand up?