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Connecticut Same-Sex Couples Have a Right to Marry

Cara

This just in: Connecticut’s Supreme Court overruled the state’s same-sex marriage ban.

Connecticut’s Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex couples have the right to marry, making that state the third behind Massachusetts and California to legalize such unions.

The divided court ruled 4-3 that gay and lesbian couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry under the state constitution, and Connecticut’s civil unions law does not provide those couples with the same rights as heterosexual couples.

“I can’t believe it. We’re thrilled, we’re absolutely overjoyed. We’re finally going to be able, after 33 years, to get married,” said Janet Peck of Colchester, who was a plaintiff with her partner, Carole Conklin.

Even better, because the ruling was based on the state’s constitution, it cannot be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Further, Connecticut Governor Rell says that she disagrees with the ruling but will not fight it.  So there you go: 3 down, 47 to go.

Congratulations to all of those CT couples that are about to tie the knot!

15 thoughts on Connecticut Same-Sex Couples Have a Right to Marry

  2. Improving the world, one state at a time. Maybe the remaining New England states will follow, now. Anybody want to guess when there will be a U.S. Supreme Court challenge about the full faith and credit issue in the constitution?

    Congrats, CT.

  4. Pingback: Yay! Connecticut! « random babble…

  5. What are the odds that:

    1) the wingnuts will try to make red meat for the base out of this;

    2) said base will stop tracking the latest losses in their 401(k)s long enough to scream “OH SHUT UP!”

    Answer: (1) probably; (2) let’s hope.

  6. To be blunt, I don’t really buy the whole “backlash” theory regarding the relationship between moves towards gay marriage and votes. Republicans started making this issue a litmus test for state legislators after Hawaii. They passed laws in state after state pushing the envelope, then moved for state constitutional referendums to solidify existing statutory language. The “scary events” that are at the core of the “backlash” theory of 2004 happened a full year before the general election. Showing that there really isn’t a “convenient season.”

  9. Anybody want to guess when there will be a U.S. Supreme Court challenge about the full faith and credit issue in the constitution?

    I’ve never been able to figure this one out–I’m not a lawyer, but it always seemed to me that DOMA was unconstitutional as written.

  11. *dances*

    FashionablyEvil: Yeah, if it’s challenged it’s gonna be struck down if there’s any justice (as in abstract concept, not as in judge) in the world. It’s really blatantly unconstitutional. How it works, though, is that it’s got to be challenged. I want it to be challenged because it is going down.

  13. Let’s hope it remains 3 47 to go. California has a proposition on the ballot to repeal the gay marriage law (Prop 8). Being that I’ve heard a lot of protests for Prop 8 and very little against it, we could very well lose our legal gay marriages here in CA.

  14. Yay for CT!

    I’ve got to reiterate what Alyssa said about California though. The atmosphere has turned for Prop 8, and I’m really scared it’s going to pass. They’re flooding the waves with commercials saying that if gays get to marry, they’ll tell your 6 year olds about gay marriage in school, that churches will lose their tax status, that you’ll have to explain all of this gayness to your young kids, all this bullshit. The big problem is that it’s working.

    I’m trying to think of strategies to get out the message that all this is just crap, and I’ve given to No on 8 a few times now, but I just feel like I don’t know what else to do. I was trying to think like the scaries on the right, and how they do their advertising, maybe demonize the Mormons from Utah who are paying for the ads? (They are, by and large.) Something like, “Maybe in Utah they are willing to take away rights from millions of loving couples just to save the bother of actually talking with their kids, but not in California. We all know that in Utah most people want the church running the government, but in California we want churches and government safe from each other’s influence. And I know in California we understand that there is no logical connection between civil marriages and church tax status. Let’s have California make it’s own decisions, and not let our freedoms be bought by the religious right in Utah.” I don’t know. What do you think? Too dirty?

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