DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – The Iowa Supreme Court refused to tamper with a lower court decision granting two women a dissolution of their civil union.

In a unanimous ruling, the court said a conservative group that had sued to overturn the ruling had no standing in the case.

In the case, Kimberly Jean Brown had filed for divorce from Jennifer Sue Perez. Their divorce petition said the two were married in March 2002 in Bolton, Vt.

Judge Jeffrey Neary granted the divorce, later altering the ruling to reflect that it was a termination of the couple’s civil union.

The legal arm of the Des Moines-based Iowa Family Policy Center and a handful of state legislators had challenged the decision, saying Neary had overstepped his authority. By dissolving the civil union, they said, Neary was recognizing same-sex marriage.

The Supreme Court said the group was not harmed by Neary’s decision.

“We fail to see how the district court’s action in dissolving a civil union of another couple harmed in any specific way these plaintiffs’ marriages and for this reason, they have shown no legally recognized interest or personal stake in the underlying action,” the high court said.

“We must keep in mind that our task is not to judge the merits of the plaintiffs’ contentions,” the court wrote. “Rather, our task is to determine whether these plaintiffs are the proper parties to bring this action.”

Chuck Hurley, president of the Iowa Family Policy Center, said there was both good and bad in the ruling.

“The Supreme Court explicitly said they were not affirming same-sex civil union or marriage, but we are very disappointed that they had an opportunity to say to a rogue judge, ‘You had no jurisdiction.’

“What that means is they’ve left the door cracked open and I predict we’ll continue to have more lawsuits,” Hurley said.

Messages left for three state lawmakers who were plaintiffs in the case were not immediately returned.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a friend of the court brief in the case, along with Lambda Legal and other groups, praised the ruling.

“The court’s decision is a great relief to this couple, whose misfortune has been exploited for political purposes,” said John Knight, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. “The court sent a clear message to anti-gay activists that they have no business interfering in cases that don’t concern them.”

Neary survived a retention vote last fall after the conservative group campaigned to oust him. The judge declined to comment on the Supreme Court ruling.