By William BraniginWashington Post Staff Writer Saturday, October 11, 2008The Connecticut Supreme Court overturned a state ban on same-sex marriage yesterday, ruling that it "discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation" in violation of the state constitution.
The 4 to 3 ruling made Connecticut the nation's third state to legalize gay marriage through the courts, joining Massachusetts and California.
While the case was pending in a trial court, the Connecticut legislature passed a law in 2005 that permitted same-sex couples to enter into civil unions that grant essentially the same rights available to married couples. But the law defined marriage as "the union of one man and one woman," and the focus of the case shifted to whether this stipulation was permissible under the state constitution.
"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 otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice," Justice Richard N. 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."
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