Last week’s ruling in Kerrigan v. Commissioner of Public Health legalized same-sex marriage in Connecticut.
But where does that leave Connecticut civil unions?
I asked this question to Western New England College School of Law Professor Jennifer Levi. Professor Levi was co-counsel in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the landmark Massachusetts Supreme Court case which held that it was unconstitutional in Massachusetts to prohibit same-sex marriage.
Cases like Goodridge and Kerrigan don’t happen overnight and they don’t happen without attorneys like Jennifer Levi.
Here’s what Professor Levi had to say about the state of civil unions in Connecticut after Kerrigan:
The case did not strike down a civil union law or otherwise address its validity at all. That’s not what the case was about. Civil unions remain valid and people are certainly allowed to marry their civil union partner.
But the legislature can also take up the issue and address either civil unions or marriages within the constraints of the decision’s equality analysis.
I think the California experience informs that in Connecticut. Couples in domestic partnerships in California remain in them and have the option to get married as well. There are probably good reasons for couples to be both in a marriage and a domestic partnership in California (or a civil union in Connecticut) given all of the discriminatory marriage laws across the country and the possibility that being in a civil union in a jurisdiction that has a pernicious (but narrow) anti-marriage law could offer some hope of protection for someone traveling through.