Remembering Sharon Malheiro
5/3/2023Sharon Malheiro died in her sleep the other day, apparently of a heart attack. She was 67 years old. She was a civil-rights lawyer who fought bravely and brilliantly against discrimination of all kinds. She was particularly vigilant and vigorous in her fight for gay rights. She was a co-founder of One Iowa, the statewide organization fighting for and defending gays and gay rights, and was instrumental in the successful efforts to have same-sex marriage legalized in Iowa. Her funeral was April 25 at Plymouth Church. Among the speakers was her friend Michael Gartner. Here are his remarks.
Everyone in this church knows of the wonders and the works of Sharon Malheiro — her founding of One Iowa, her relentless fight for equality, her diligence and determination, her mothering and mentoring, her devotion to the cause — and her devotion to her wife, Sue.
She was a terrific editor and writer — she was managing editor of the Register and Tribune Syndicate while I was running the newspaper a couple of generations ago, and that’s when I first met her. And she was, of course, a first-rate lawyer, for a while running a large downtown law firm, which required the tact of a diplomat and the skills of a kindergarten teacher.
She always had a lot of balls in the air. But she always had time to lend an ear, to soothe a friend, to write a brief. Or to pass along a tidbit or a story or a joke to a friend over a cup of coffee. And she always had time for that cup of coffee.
For the past generation, or longer, she was involved in nearly every issue about equality and fairness and discrimination in this state — sometimes in the courtroom, sometimes in the meeting room, sometimes in the backroom. But, always, Sharon was there — strategizing, listening, briefing, arguing, consoling. Leading. Never did she seek publicity; always did she seek equality.
She didn’t always win. But she viewed all losses in two ways — misguided and temporary. But I never saw her get really mad, and I knew her a long time, first as that editor and then as that lawyer. Later, as a father and grandfather, I knew her as she successfully fought all the way to the Iowa Supreme Court for the right of my granddaughter to have the names of both of her mothers on her birth certificate. Then, I knew her as she helped and guided my daughter Melissa to legally become my son River.
I saw her outwork and outsmart a lot of people. I saw her frustrated — she never really figured out why, in her view, Democratic Attorney General Tom Miller never really embraced and led the fight. But she viewed that as a puzzlement, not an outrage.
She occasionally had some choice words for some mossbacks — and she had a wide vocabulary of choice words — but I don’t think she was ever really mad at those Republicans in the state, and in the Legislature, and on the Court, who dismissed her at every turn. She personally liked some of them quite a bit. She just sort of pitied them for their narrow-mindedness, and she viewed them as potential converts.
Although she did occasionally wish that one or two of them would have a favored grandchild who would grow up to be gay — which she viewed as a great force for the fight against discrimination.
That fight against discrimination, discrimination of all shapes and forms and colors, was her cause, and she viewed it as America’s cause — a cause of equality and fairness for all, a cause she believed in in every bone in her body.
Sharon Malheiro never lost her sense of passion — or her sense of humor.
She never gave up.
She always rose to fight another day.
But now she won’t.
And that is a tragedy — an immense tragedy. Not only for all of us, but for all of Iowa. ♦
