Connecticut Takes Steps Toward Gay Civil Unions
By WILLIAM YARDLEY, NYTimes on the Web, March 7, 2005
HARTFORD, March 6 - The debate over a bill that would allow same-sex civil unions in Connecticut in some ways has been predictable:
Some church groups and Republican lawmakers are opposed, calling the measure a slippery slope to gay marriage.
Some Democrats are in favor, saying gays are being denied important rights and protections.
Yet in other ways, the debate may seem counterintuitive.
"I don't have any trouble with the concept," Gov. M. Jodi Rell, a Republican, said on Friday when asked about civil unions.
"I've said all along I don't support any kind of discrimination and I don't believe in discrimination of any kind.
If we can address those concerns without marriage, then I am open to the concept."
In fact, the governor, who emphasized that she wanted to read the bill closely before committing, may be more open to the idea than Anne Stanback, president of Love Makes a Family, the state's leading advocacy group for same-sex marriage.
"We don't support civil unions in concept," Ms. Stanback said. "We're saying that we don't think that Connecticut needs to take a half-step to marriage."
Given that 11 states voted on Election Day to ban gay marriage, central figures in Connecticut could seem to be out of sync with national developments.
But lawmakers and gay activists say the shifting and relatively muted debate here reflects views that have evolved rapidly in response to historic changes in neighboring states.
It has been five years since Vermont, following a court ruling, became the first state to establish civil unions between same-sex couples.
It has been less than a year since Massachusetts, following a court ruling, began allowing same-sex couples to marry.
And in Manhattan last month, a state judge ruled that a law that effectively banned gay marriage violated the State Constitution.
The ruling, which is under appeal, could open the door to gay marriage in New York State if it is upheld by the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court.
But in Connecticut, the exit ramp to New England and its distinctive style of social liberalism, no court ruling has been necessary to push state-sanctioned civil unions toward what lawmakers in both parties say is likely passage.
And while changes in neighboring states may have altered perspectives here, some say the state has long been known for tolerance, or at least pragmatic apathy.
"I think there's a broad consensus in Connecticut that what consenting adults do, the public doesn't question that," said Robert M. Ward, a Republican who is the State House minority leader.
Yet some gay activists worry that allowing civil unions will mean losing momentum for the real goal -- gay marriage.
Mary L. Bonauto, a gay rights lawyer, said that while civil unions can improve couples' rights to state benefits in areas like health care and personal taxes, those couples might not receive the same Social Security, pension and 401(k) benefits given to married couples.
Ms. Stanback and others say only marriage will bring full legal and cultural protections.
"Massachusetts is the gold standard," Ms. Stanback said. "What Love Makes a Family felt was that with Massachusetts allowing gay marriage, the five-year-old civil unions law in Vermont was no longer the standard to shoot for."
Last month the Judiciary Committee of the Democrat-controlled General Assembly easily passed the bill that would allow gay and lesbian couples to be joined in civil unions.
The bill, which must be considered by the full General Assembly and the governor, would make Connecticut the fourth state, after Vermont, Massachusetts and California to give same-sex couples many of the protections of marriage, if not necessarily marital status.
The committee, which approved the measure by a 2-to-1 ratio, rejected proposed amendments that defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
And one Democrat voted against the bill because it did not allow gay marriage.
Going into the vote, Ms. Stanback's group had insisted it would accept nothing less than marriage.
That position generated criticism from some lawmakers, including those who said it threatened the civil unions bill.
Now the group is no longer opposing the civil unions bill, but it plans to continue to push for marriage.
"It is discrimination to exclude gays and lesbians from the civil institution of marriage," Ms. Stanback said, referring to Mrs. Rell's opposition to discrimination.
Michael P. Lawlor, a Democrat who is the House co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee and who supports gay marriage, said adopting civil unions now would increase the chance for gay marriage in the future.
He said other residents are becoming accustomed to gay couples as social peers -- as neighbors who raise children, for example.
"Once you become comfortable with that, then it's hard to argue against civil unions," he said, "and it will be hard to argue against marriage."
Andrew J. McDonald, a Democrat who is the committee's Senate co-chairman, said one key to the debate in Connecticut has been casting civil unions as a civil rights issue rather than one with religious or cultural undertones.
By removing the word marriage from the equation, he said, "People started to realize this was really just a bundle of legal rights."
Mr. Ward, the Republican leader, said that while he and some other Republicans were likely to support a civil unions bill, marriage was another matter for lawmakers and voters.
"When you call it marriage," he said, "they view it as literally changing the definition of the word."
The most recent public poll in the state, released last June by Quinnipiac University, showed that 59 percent supported civil unions, while 50 percent opposed gay marriage and 45 percent supported it.
Opponents of gay marriage and civil unions plan a rally at the Capitol on April 24.
Marie T. Hilliard, executive director of the Connecticut Catholic Conference, is helping organize the rally.
She said that her group wanted a referendum on civil unions and marriage and that she believed Mrs. Rell, who opposes gay marriage, might be wary once she reviewed the civil unions bill.
"I don't think it's a slam-dunk," Ms. Hilliard said. "I think if you look line by line at the bill, it was much more than anyone really intended when they used the word civil union.
Every right that's been ascribed in marriage is ascribed to couples in civil unions."
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