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Same-Sex Marriage to begin in Connecticut today!
(I'm feeling ecstatic)
Judge Clears Way For Same-Sex Marriages
BY DANIELA ALTIMARI | The Hartford Courant
10:24 AM EST, November 12, 2008
NEW HAVEN- A 4-year legal battle for same-sex marriage came to an end this morning in a New Haven courtroom when Superior Court Judge Jonathan E. Silbert signed an order paving the way to couples to get their licenses.
The state Supreme Court last month, in a 4-3 decision, ruled that preventing gay and lesbian couples from marrying violates the state constitution. Today's brief hearing was a formality that was needed before gay couples could start receiving marriage licenses.
Immediately after the court proceeding, one of the plaintiff couples, Barbara and Robin Levine-Ritterman, walked to New Haven city hall to obtain their marriage license - perhaps the first couple in the state to do so. They came out of city hall and were greeted by a small crowd that applauded.
Suzanne Artis, another plaintiff, said she and her partner, Geraldine Artis, thought the day was momentous enough to bring their three children, whom they home school. The couple already has a civil union but "it's not the same as marriage," said Suzanne
Attorney Bennett Klein of GLADD, the Boston-based legal group that litigated the case, told the court how proud each of the couples is to live in Connecticut.
This "does mark the end of a very long journey toward equality," he said.
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who defended the case for the state, praised his staff and said, "but, like all citizens of Connecticut we respect the rule of law."
In its decision, the state Supreme Court ruled that civil unions, those marriage-like legal arrangements that Connecticut has offered to gay people since 2005, are not an acceptable substitute.
"Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the ... same-sex partner of their choice," Justice Richard Palmer wrote in the majority opinion. "To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others."
Connecticut and Massachusetts are the only states that permit same-sex couples to marry. In June, California's highest court declared same-sex marriage legal in that state and thousands of couples wed. But on Election Day, voters ended that by approving a ballot measure banning same-sex marriage.
Thirty states have written such bans into their constitutions. A handful of states permit gay and lesbian couples to enter into civil unions, legal partnerships that convey many of the rights of marriage. New York and Rhode Island do not permit same-sex couples to marry, but recognize such marriages that are performed in states that do permit them.
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