Breaking- Judge makes gay marriage legal in Iowa! (How much will this doom the Giuliani campaign?)

The AP just reported a bombshell: An Iowa judge struck down the state's ban on gay marriage, granting several couples the right to get married.

In his ruling, Hanson said the state law allowing marriage only between a man and a woman violates the constitutional rights of due process and equal protection."Couples, such as plaintiffs, who are otherwise qualified to marry one another may not be denied licenses to marry or certificates of marriage or in any other way prevented from entering into a civil marriage...by reason of the fact that both person comprising such a couple are of the same sex," he said. The judge said the state law banning same-sex marriage must be nullified, severed and stricken from the books and the marriage laws "must be read and applied in a gender neutral manner so as to permit same-sex couples to enter into a civil marriage...

Naturally, Republicans started threatening to pass a constititutional amendment within minutes:

State Sen. Ron Wieck, R-Sioux, said he was surprised by the ruling and promised the Legislature would take another look at the issue."We'll look at something we can do legislatively," Wieck said.

The case will be appealed to the state Supreme Court. This guarantees that today's ruling will be on people's minds in Iowa for months, well into the Iowa caucuses. This could naturally have a huge impact on the presidential race, as the candidates' view on gay marriage is likely to become a much bigger issue on the campaign trail in Iowa. However, keep in mind that:

1. Democratic candidates do not significantly differ on their positions on gay marriage. The major three contenders all oppose gay marriage, and have more or less the same position on civil unions. This effectively means that this ruling will not have a big impact on the primary results - though candidates will probably spend much more time addressing the issue than they expected.
2. This could be devastating news, however, for the Giuliani campaign. Do they really want to be talking to Iowa voters about gay rights over the next few months? If this becomes a huge issue in the Republican primary, expect Giuliani's opponents to be able to use Giuiliani's past as a supporter of civil unions (not to mention the period he stayed with a gay couple) with much more relevance. This is not going to go away, and Giuliani will have to keep answering questions. Giuliani's moderation on social issues has not hurt him at all for now, but was that just because they had lost some of their urgency in the past few months?
3. Before any Democrat freaks out about what this means for their chances in the general election, remember that the gay marriage issue did not have much resonance in 2006. The constitutional amendments failed in Arizona and only narrowly passed in SD and in VA. Referendums also did not seem to increase conservative turnout.

And one last point: It will be interesting to see the reaction of Democratic candidates, and whether they have learned anything since Kerry's disastrous endorsement of the Missouri Hate Amendment in 2004. It would be more than very disappointing (though unfortunately not surprising) if they reacted the same way.