Thousands set to marry (Journal Inquirer)
Saturday, October 11, 2008
By: Keith M. Phaneuf

HARTFORD -- Advocates of same-sex marriage predicted thousands of couples will move quickly to benefit from Friday's state Supreme Court decision opening marriage to all couples. Gov. M. Jodi Rell and legislative leaders from both parties indicated they now will work to revise the state's marriage laws to conform to the ruling, rather than push for a constitutional amendment to overturn it.

“We can now register at Home Depot as we prepare for marriage,” Stack said. “What do people do when they love each other? People who love each other get married.”

Connecticut became the third state to allow same-sex couples to marry when the state Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on Friday that the existing civil union statute discriminates against such couples. That decision marked the second victory this year for advocates of same-sex marriage.

The California Supreme Court ruled on May 15 that the right to marry extends to all couples. Massachusetts’ high court reached a similar conclusion four years ago. No state has legalized same-sex marriage through a vote of its legislature.

Anne Stanback, president of Love Makes a Family, a Farmington-based nonprofit organization, predicted that the decision will lead thousands of same-sex couples to choose marriage.

‘Fairer place’

“Connecticut is now a fairer, more equitable place for all,” said Stanback, whose group has lobbied for same-sex marriage at the Capitol for the past five years. “This historic ruling will provide additional security and respect to the thousands of loving, committed same-sex couples and their children living in our state.”

According to The Williams Institute, a research center on sexual orientation law at UCLA, more than 9,500 same-sex couples currently live in Connecticut, and nearly 30 percent of them are raising children.

Mary Bonauto, a lawyer with Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, or GLAD, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of eight couples, predicted that the Connecticut ruling will lead other states to voluntarily open marriage to all couples.

“There are discussions in state houses … all over the country,” she said.

New Hampshire, New Jersey, Maine, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington all have laws allowing either civil unions or domestic partnerships. Hawaii extends certain spousal rights to same-sex couples and cohabiting heterosexual pairs.

Friday’s ruling drew criticism from the Connecticut Catholic Conference and from the Family Institute of Connecticut.

Connecticut’s Catholic bishops are “extremely disappointed” by the ruling, the conference said in a statement. “Four people have not just extended a supposed civil right to a particular class of individuals but have chosen to redefine the institution of marriage.”

“Even a legislature as liberal as ours has heeded the will of the people and said ‘no’ to same-sex marriage year after year,” added Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the nonprofit, Hartford-based family institute. “With today’s ruling the Supreme Court has said to the people of Connecticut that ‘No, even this victory will be denied to you. We, your robed masters, will decide the big questions of politics.’”

Parties agree: Issue settled

But at the Capitol on Friday, supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage largely agreed the issue is now settled.

Rell, who has said marriage should be limited to the union of one man and one woman, said she disagrees with the court’s decision, but will uphold it.

“The Supreme Court has spoken,” the Republican governor said. “I do not believe their voice reflects the majority of the people of Connecticut. However, I am also firmly convinced that attempts to reverse this decision — either legislatively or by amending the state Constitution — will not meet with success. I will therefore abide by the ruling.”

Similarly, Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, said, “While I believe these decisions are better left to elected representatives, it is ultimately the province of the state Supreme Court to interpret our constitution. … Whether people agree or disagree, we all need to respect the court’s decision and abide by the ruling.”

Democrats, who hold large majorities in the House and Senate, now will begin reviewing all state laws pertaining to marriage and to civil unions, and prepare adjustments to create a uniform system, said Sen. Andrew J. McDonald, D-Stamford, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

McDonald, whose panel backed a marriage equality bill in 2007 only to watch the House and Senate both refuse to take it up, predicted there will be no major effort within the legislature to amend the constitution to overturn Friday’s decision.

“I’m sure there will always be a few legislators who will try to advance that argument, but the legislature clearly was already on a march to meet the same goal” as Friday’s court decision, McDonald added.

Senate President Pro Tem Donald E. Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn, and House Majority Leader Christopher Donovan, D-Meriden, also issued statements applauding the ruling.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote the majority decision.

‘History of discrimination’

“In light of the history of pernicious discrimination faced by gay men and lesbians, and because the institution of marriage carries with it a status and significance that the newly created classification of civil unions does not embody, the segregation of heterosexual and homosexual couples into separate institutions constitutes a cognizable harm,” Palmer wrote.

He was joined in the decision by Associate Justices Flemming L. Norcott Jr. and Joette Katz and by Appellate Court Judge Lubbie Harper Jr., who sat on the panel that heard the case.

Associate Justices David M. Borden, Christine S. Vertefeuille, and Peter T. Zarella dissented in separate opinions.

While Borden and Vertefeuille concluded that sexual orientation does not constitute a specific class under the state constitution, Zarella argued that the majority failed to recognize the role of marriage law in regulating reproductive conduct.

“The ancient definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman has its basis in biology, not bigotry,” Zarella wrote. “If the state no longer has an interest in the regulation of procreation, then that is a decision for the legislature or the people of the state and not this court.”

Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers didn’t participate in the case because members of her husband’s law firm, Robinson & Cole of Hartford, wrote a friend-of-the-court brief for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which supports same-sex marriage.

Filed in 2004

Seven same-sex couples filed the Connecticut lawsuit in late August 2004, three months after Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage. An eighth couple later joined in the suit.

The plaintiffs applied for and were denied marriage licenses in Madison.

Originally filed in New Haven Superior Court, the lawsuit contended that Connecticut’s marriage laws violate the equal protection and due process clauses of the state constitution.

The General Assembly and Rell enacted a law in April 2005 that created civil unions for same-sex couples. The measure grants same-sex couples all of the rights guaranteed under state law to married heterosexuals.

It was adopted only after a bipartisan coalition in the House forced an amendment that defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman.

But Friday’s decision was about more than the use of the word “marriage.” Zarella said in his dissenting opinion that civil unions are purely a legislative creation, and thus could be changed or abolished by the legislature, while marriage enjoys constitutional protection.