National

Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions, and Domestic Partnerships

Two states passed laws in 2009 legalizing same-sex marriage, and the top court in a third state permitted the marriage of gay couples, changing the landscape surrounding an issue that brings together deeply held principles and flashpoint politics.

Same-sex marriage first became a reality in the United States in 2004, after the Supreme Court in Massachusetts ruled that it was required under the equal protection clause of the state's Constitution. Connecticut began allowing same-sex marriage in late 2008. In April 2009, Iowa's Supreme Court ruled in favor of allowing gay couples to marry, and the legislatures of Maine and Vermont passed laws granting the same right in the following weeks. In California, after a court decision in 2008 allowed the marriages, a voter referendum that November, upheld in court in May 2009, barred them.

Civil unions, an intermediate step that supporters say has made same-sex marriage seem less threatening, are legal in New Jersey, Connecticut and Vermont. The latter two states are phasing them out after adopting same-sex marriage laws.

The issue of same-sex marriages came to the fore after the Supreme Court of Hawaii ruled in 1993 that the denial of marriage licenses to three homosexual couples amounted to unconstitutional discrimination on the basis of sex -- not sexual orientation -- unless the state could show a compelling reason for the denials. The question of a compelling reason was sent to a lower court for a decision.

The Hawaii Legislature passed a bill in 1994 affirming marriage as intended for "man-woman units" capable of procreation. But in 1996, conservatives, fearful that the court case would lead to the sanctioning of marriages of lesbian and gay couples in Hawaii by the end of 1997, campaigned across the nation to insure that the recognition of same-sex marriages would not spread to other states.

The legislative battle picked up momentum as more conservatives became convinced a federal law was required. They envisioned a time in the not-too-distant future when lesbian and gay residents of their own states would fly to Hawaii and return with official marriage licenses. If they did not act and that should come to pass, their states would be left with an obligation under the United States Constitution to recognize those marriages.

In September 1996, the United States Congress, approving what was called the "Defense of Marriage Act," voted overwhelmingly to deny Federal benefits to married people of the same sex and to permit states to ignore such marriages sanctioned in other states. The bill was signed by President Bill Clinton.

In 1998, Hawaii voters, and those in Alaska as well, rejected, in ballot initiatives, the legalization of same-sex marriages. Other states, both before and after the 2004 Massachustts court decision, have done the same.