Oct 17, 2008  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR  | COMMENTS     

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled last week that same-sex couples have the right to marry under the state constitution and that a civil unions law enacted by the state three years ago fails to provide gay people with the “status and significance” of marriage.

Under the historic 4-3 ruling, Connecticut is poised to join Massachusetts and California as the third state to allow same-sex couples to marry.

The court ruling sharply rebukes arguments by state officials, including Republican Gov. Jodi Rell, that same-sex marriage was not necessary to provide gay couples equal rights and protections under the state’s constitution because the civil unions provided all the rights and benefits of marriage.

“We conclude that, 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,” the majority ruling states.

The court’s ruling says that sexual orientation “constitutes a quasi-suspect classification for purposes of the equal protection provisions of the state constitution.” Such a finding, according to the ruling, subjects laws discriminating against gay people in the state to “heightened or intermediate judicial scrutiny” and opened the way for the court to declare the state’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional.

“Today’s victory fulfills the hopes and dreams of gay and lesbian families to live as full and equal citizens in Connecticut,” said Bennet Klein, an attorney for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), the gay rights litigation group that filed a lawsuit challenging the state law banning same-sex marriage.

“Marriage is unparalleled in the dignity, respect and protection it gives families,” Klein said.
But Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, said the ruling “usurped democracy in Connecticut and redefined marriage by judicial force.”

He called on voters to approve an initiative on the Connecticut ballot in November that would convene a state constitutional convention, which Wolfgang said could be used to amend the constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

Ballot measures asking whether such a convention should be held appear on the ballot automatically every 20 years under state law. State officials said the timing of the ballot measure this year is coincidental to the marriage controversy.

GLAD filed its lawsuit in 2004 on behalf of eight same-sex couples. The Connecticut court system named the case Kerrigan, Elizabeth, et el., v. Connecticut Department of Health, et al.

According to a weekend poll by the University of Connecticut's Center for Survey Research & Analysis, 53 percent of state residents support the ruling, while 42 percent do not.

Rell issued a statement saying that she disagrees with the ruling, but would uphold it.

“I continue to believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman,” she said. “I also believe that the historic civil union law that I proudly signed in 2005 is equitable and just.”

The governor said she doesn’t believe the court’s decision reflects the views of most people in 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,” she said. “I will therefore abide by the ruling.”

Impact on California?

Nan Hunter, a Georgetown University law professor and gay rights attorney, said she is concerned that the timing of the Connecticut Supreme Court decision could hurt efforts by gay advocacy groups to defeat ballot measures seeking to ban gay marriage in California, Arizona and Florida.

She said that coming less than a month before the November election, anti-gay groups might use the ruling forcing the legalization of gay marriage in Connecticut to stir up fear in the other three states as well as in Connecticut, where voters will be deciding on whether to call a state constitutional convention.

“I would expect that the right wing and anti-[gay] marriage groups will try to play this decision up as a source of fear for voters in those other states,” Hunter said. “That’s what they did on the national level with the Massachusetts decision in 2004,” she said, referring to the Massachusetts high court’s ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in that state.

“The economic news will be much more on the voters’ minds this year on the national level,” Hunter said. “But in the three states where there is a marriage issue on the ballot that they are going to be voting on one way or the other, I think the risk is that it will frighten ...