Janelle Rettig is making plans to amend her tax returns, even though it means she’ll probably have to fork over more money.

It will be worth it, because for the first time in her 25-year relationship, she’ll soon be able to call herself married.

Rettig and Robin Butler were married in Canada more than five years ago. But this “is the first time a governmental body where we live recognizes us as anything but strangers,” she said.

“That’s overwhelming,” she told me Friday, the day our fair state became the third in the country and the first in the Midwest to allow same-sex marriages.

Go Iowa.

For the second time in less than a year, we surprised the country with our forward thinkingness. Even native Iowans were a little amazed. But the same word was on everyone’s lips, gay or straight.

That word was “proud.”

Well, not absolutely everyone was proud, of course. There were some who, predictably, said the ruling marked the end of civilization as we know it.

A few concluded the only thing to do with a state constitution that provides for marriage equality is to change it.

But even that curious position wasn’t enough to spoil the mood. Still, people were smiling, crying, patting each other on the back.

Ann Thuma and Nancy Besemer were so excited they rushed from work at 9 a.m. to fill out a marriage license application at the Johnson County Recorder’s office. They won’t be able to file the application until the court’s ruling takes effect in a few weeks, but they were still smiling. I took a picture of them with their application.

“We could be dressed better,” said Thuma, looking down at her Iowa State University sweat shirt. Why the rush to get there?

“We didn’t want to take any chances,” she said.

Only one same-sex couple managed to get married the last, brief, time same-sex marriage was legal here. But this time around, there is no hurry, Johnson County Recorder Kim Painter told me.

Painter fielded a lot of phone calls Friday morning. It’s the Supreme Court, she told callers. “There’s not going to be someone that comes along and says ‘just kidding.’”

“Everyone gets to take a breath, celebrate, propose to the people they love and make a few plans,” Painter said.

If opponents do push for a constitutional amendment, it will take at least two years to come for a vote. Two years for Iowans to realize that the sky hasn’t fallen and the world hasn’t changed that much, except that more families are secure in the comfort of knowing their love and commitment are just as good as anyone’s.

Because marriage equality means legal rights like knowing when you’re sick, your life partner will be able to visit you in the hospital.

But it also means that commitment is recognized in the eyes of neighbors, teachers, family and friends.

And the Supreme Court’s decision means even more to the country. It shows a rural, religious, politically divided state can look at the issue and say, unanimously: of course equality is right.

It’s a practical view, a reasonable view.

It’s an Iowan view. And now, it’s the official view.

Way to go.

This article was re-posted from my blog and weekly column in the Gazette which appears on Wednesdays and Saturdays.