Hoorah! The Connecticut Supreme Court today ruled 4-3 that the state’s ban on gay marriage violates its constitution.
The decision came after eight gay citizens filed a lawsuit claiming civil unions were not the same as marriage and qualified as discrimination. And the Court agreed, as Justice Richard Palmer writes in the majority opinion:
We conclude that, in light of the history of pernicious discrimination faced by gay men and lesbians, and because the institution of marriage carries it it a status and significance that the newly crated classification of civil unions does not embody, the segregation of heterosexual and homosexual couples into separate institutions constitutes a cognizable harm. We also conclude that our state scheme discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation, for the same reasons that classifications predicated on gender are considered quasi-suspect for the purposes of the equal protection provisions of the United States constitutions…
…
The state has failed to provide sufficient justification for excluding same sex couples from the institution of marriage.
This is good news for those of you in New York and New Jersey, because you don’t have to be a Connecticut resident to marry there.
Here’s the PDF of the ruling.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
burton21
Woo, now being from this yuppie hell of a state isn’t nearly as painful!
JJ
Oh Happy Day!
fredo777
Hell to the yes.
This is the kind of news I like to read about.
Sir Winston Thriller
Maybe now the Supremes in my own state of Vermont will get with the programme.
Charles J. Mueller
Three cheers for the Connecticut Supreme Court. They obviously have their heads screwed on correctly. 😉
Darth Paul
KISS THE RINGS, social conservatives…!
RS
This is great news, though I’d feel better if it came out on November 6th…
CHURCHILL-Y
F#ckin Yeah!
Too bad it’s still gonna be put up to the voters to decide.
LauraBush
Finally some GREAT news on Queerty!!!
darek
Technical question – if the ruling was 4-3, why are there 8 people in that photo?
Can anyone explain that to me?
And yes, WOO HOO FOR CT! 3 down, 47 to go! 🙂
Wayne
GREAT!!!!!! Now if we could just get Obama to take 10 seconds out of his busy schedule to do a simple “Vote No on Prop 8” add, it would go a long way in ensuring our fight equality.
CitizenGeek
Wow, this news seemingly came from no where (I wasn’t aware Connecticut supreme court was dealing with this at all) but it really is absolutely wonderful! Go Connecticut!
mark
Thank You CT, your tourism to Hartford for beautiful Autumn weddings should be greatly enhanced.
mark
What a nice Supreme Court which actually LOOKS LIKE AMERICA, maybe Barack could just replace the US Supreme Court with CT Supreme Court.
Bill Perdue
Connecticut is a huge victory precisely because it consciously replaces the second class status of civil unions with equality.
The decision by the Connecticut Supremes exposes the contempt Obama and McCain have for the GLBT communities. They deliberately support civil unions vs. marriage because they’re religious bigots. They also support the notion of ‘states rights’, an old racist trick to encourage ill treatment of minorities. That’s especially bad because many states, following the lead of Bill Clinton, passed anti-GLBT marriage laws and constitutional amendments.
As for the vote in California and the other states this is just one of many variables affecting the outcome. What is for sure in California is that if we lose it’ll be because the battle isn’t being joined in the Black, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander and immigrant communities. Those communities are the majority in California. They need to be specifically addressed by mass leafleting, TV/radio spots and phone banks and all the means at our disposal. In particular rightwing christian leaders have to be denounced as bigots and their ties to right wing bigots like Karl Rove and George Bush exposed.
In spite of their record the last time we lost in California the current campaign is based on the dictates of public relations idiots and Democratic Party hotshots who don’t have a clue about LGBT politics but are experts on selling predatory mortgages, used cars and opportunist hustlers like Obama. That’s why they give Biden and Obama a pass when they undercut the No on 8 messages with their bigoted views on same sex marriage. They, and not just open reactionaries like McCain and Palin, should be publically challenged and vilified for their bigotry.
Brian Miller
We conclude that, in light of the history of pernicious discrimination faced by gay men and lesbians, and because the institution of marriage carries it it a status and significance that the newly crated classification of civil unions does not embody, the segregation of heterosexual and homosexual couples into separate institutions constitutes a cognizable harm. We also conclude that our state scheme discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation, for the same reasons that classifications predicated on gender are considered quasi-suspect for the purposes of the equal protection provisions of the United States constitutions…
Civil-union-segregation-supporting Barack Obama, DOMA-supporting Joe Biden, anti-gay-amendment-supporting John McCain, and uber-ditz Sarah Palin should be forced to read that paragraph, over and over and over and over, until they internalize it.
Pam
Well the gays have did it again now marriage is authorized in Connecticut now tell me how are they supposed to produce offspring?? or will they adopt a gay dog to have around the house, gays are disgusted and demented outcasts, yep
Jaroslaw
Pam, why are you here?
My question is how can SUPREME Court justices be divided on whether on not equality is, well, equal? Seems like the decision would be 7-1 or something.
fredo777
She’s here because the bitch is probably incapable of reading the titles of articles + gleaning from them that this is, in fact, a blog for gays (+ non-gay-haters) about LGBT issues.
Take it to the AFA forums, heifer.
Buffy
@ Darek
Senior Justice William J. Sullivan (he white guy standing on the far right) did not participate in the decision.
Buffy
* The white ….
someone
TO ALL YOU DISGUSTING HOMOS: Please, please, PLEASE move to CT, get married, cheat on each other with lots of other faggots/lesbians, and leave the rest of the country alone. Thank you.
someone
Your “marriage” means !!!NOTHING!!! to the majority of Americans, not to mention GOD. You’ll just continue having disgusting group sex, trading partners and spreading your HIV/AIDS to each other. Hey wait. . .now THERE’S a GREAT idea!!! Hey homos, keep spreading the homo disease to each other! Before we know it, gay marriage won’t be an issue because there won’t be any left to marry each other :-).
Jaroslaw
SOMEONE – since you like to keep shit going, here’s a tidbit for you…the leading cause of death of women prior to modern medicine was CHILDBIRTH. It was very common for men to have at least two wives in their lifetime. Care to ask God why something as “natural” as childbirth was so often fatal? So much for homos spreading diseases – and by the way, AIDS is a mainly heterosexual disease outside the U.S.
Throbert McGee
Not to rain on the parade, but doesn’t this ruling kinda make it less likely that “redder” states will consider giving Civil Unions a try as a compromise measure?
To put it another way, I don’t understand why so many gays and lesbians have eagerly bought into the idea that Civil Union laws are an insulting slap in the face that reduce us to 2nd-class citizens — rather than seeing Civil Unions as a rather significant improvement over what had been the status quo, of having ZERO legal recognition for our relationships.
Brian Miller
To put it another way, I don’t understand why so many gays and lesbians have eagerly bought into the idea that Civil Union laws are an insulting slap in the face that reduce us to 2nd-class citizens — rather than seeing Civil Unions as a rather significant improvement over what had been the status quo, of having ZERO legal recognition for our relationships.
Civil unions are an improvement over zero recognition for sure, just as segregated schools for black children were an improvement over slave-era laws forbidding teaching black people to read and write.
Black people didn’t settle for segregated “separate but equal,” however, and neither should LGBT people.
Lisa Hunerast
I am moving out of connecticut asap if they dont change this law.
pederasts and homosexuals are moving here in droves.
one homosexual “couple” molested the boys in their charge
the rest areas are their meeting grounds and are now packed with perverts
homosexual nightclubs are opening up for quick hookups 🙁