Today the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage! The decision is available here. Connecticut is now the third state to extend equal marriage rights to same-sex couples. There will be a rally in Hartford, CT at 5:30 tonight. “Marriage equality supporters from around the state will gather at the north steps of the Capitol in Hartford to show support for marriage equality for same-sex couples on this historic day.”
In 2005 the Connecticut legislature enacted a civil unions law that provided same-sex couples with the same rights and responsibilities as marriage, but with no chance of federal recognition. The court’s ruling today makes it clear that civil unions are separate and unequal. The only fair and just way to provide same-sex couples with the rights of marriage is to allow gay couples to marry.
In 2004 Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage. There is an incredible film opening October 17 at Kendall Cinema that follows the struggle for same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. Saving Marriage (trailer) documents the historic SJC decision and the fight that ensued to keep gay marriage legal and defeat any attempts to write discrimination into the state constitution. If you are at all interested in the movement to legalize same-sex marriage, I recommend you see this movie. (I’ll admit, I am bias because I am in the film).
Congratulations to Connecticut! Now let’s make sure California keep same-sex marriage legal.
How can Obama and Biden continue to get away with having such an obviously wrong and illogical and unconstitutional position? Of course if a same-sex couple has all the rights and responsibilities as marriage, their union can’t be given a different legal name. As a Constitutional Law professor, he knows this. It is an insult to the electorate.
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p>Let’s hope this ruling helps people recognize that whether same-sex couples “all the rights of marriage” is the important question, as Guilliani did when he said New Hampshire’s CU’s went “too far” even though he supported CU’s for same-sex couples. “Marriage in all but name” CU’s are not tenable, they won’t float, and they will become marriage. The question is, should same-sex couples have all the rights that a married man and woman should have?
I need to preface that I have not seen anything but the trailer, as I lived, ate, breathed and slept that time period in Massachusetts’history, oh too long. But I did hear the producers/directors of Saving Marriage on Q109 Sirius Radio this morning.
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p>Someone needs to give these documentors a lesson in the history of what they documented here in Massachusetts. They were “trying” to compare Massachusetts’ with California’s fight. And way way way oversimplified what happened in Massachusetts. Pretty much saying that the courts gave us marriage via the Constitution then it stayed in the legislature and never went to the people. I know you will say, “it never did go to the people” in the literal senses…but
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p>Oh it went to the people all right, not in the ballot box but via our representative democracy which in Massachusetts is not “convoluted” as one of the directors said but was a wonderful exercise in the deocratic process. ANYONE who was in the trenches back then certainly realized that we took SSM “to the people” in more ways than one.
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p>History is a funny thing, “history consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions…” (Votaire)
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p>I look forward to seeing this “documentary” hopefully it will prove my thoughts of its creators wrong.