Jen and Dawn BarbouRoske
Ages 41 and 39. The Iowa City couple who were co-plaintiffs in a lawsuit that produced a unanimous Iowa Supreme Court ruling that same gender couples have a right to marry in Iowa. They thus join a hallowed roll of Iowa civil rights pioneers on the national stage, a list that began in 1839 when the Iowa high court held “no man in this territory can be reduced to slavery.” Together nearly two decades, they faced the importance of marriage rights as Jen delivered a daughter, McKinley, now 11, to whom Dawn could have been denied visitation rights as non-family. The couple also has an adopted daughter, Breanna, 7.