Saturday, Feb. 19, 2005 - 4:23 a.m.

Let's hear it for the Hartford Courant!! Their editorial on same-sex marriage makes immense sense, so I'm copying it here because I like what it says. Love and justice are blind, but there is no justice in most places for people who love in a way some people don't like seeing.
G.A.
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The Courant article

The Equal Pursuit Of Happiness

February 18, 2005
If history holds true to form, the nation will look back one day at the divisive debate over same-sex marriage and cringe at the unwarranted fears expressed and the hurtful statements made about homosexuals. After all, there was a time when issues that today seem right and natural, such as banning slavery, allowing women to vote and permitting interracial marriages, provoked similar division and angst.

It would be useful for the General Assembly, as it debates legislation to allow same-sex couples to marry, to remember that these changes once thought likely to bring down civilization did nothing of the kind. Instead they enhanced the founding premise that all Americans are created equal.

On the issue of same-sex marriage, the pendulum of social change swings somewhere between Massachusetts, the only state to allow same-sex couples to marry, and several states so repelled by the idea that they have either enacted laws against it or taken the extreme step of amending their constitutions to reflect that prejudice.

Marriage, goes their well-worn argument, should be between a man and a woman only.

That may be true in some religious communities, but it should not be so at city hall. The state has an obligation to treat all citizens with equal fairness. This is a civil rights issue, not a religious issue.

Gays and lesbians who want to get married should be entitled to the same privileges and legal protections as heterosexuals who want to get married. To their credit, Connecticut lawmakers have been ahead of the curve in providing same-sex couples with an increasing number of legal protections. This session, they claim to have the votes to pass a law allowing civil unions, such as are legal in Vermont, but not civil marriages.

That's unfortunate. Civil unions fall short of marriage. Some Connecticut couples are already married, such as Paul Trubey of Lebanon and his partner of 16 years. They took advantage of the Massachusetts court decision that it is illegal to bar such unions.

Why should they settle for less? To them, legalizing civil unions represents a "crumb" that would compound their separateness from heterosexual society.

Sandy Sergio of Glastonbury asks why her daughter Lauren, a neuroscientist who is legally married and living in Canada with her female partner and their child, does not merit the same privileges as Ms. Sergio's heterosexual daughters whose marriages would be recognized in the United States.

Anne Stanback, president of Love Makes a Family, a coalition of groups working for marriage equality, wonders why there should be a special category and "two lines at the town hall" for the same thing - a desire for long-term commitment. It is hard to argue against these reasonable and heartfelt sentiments. Aren't long-term commitment and stable families just what modern society needs - no matter the gender of the two partners?

All the hair-splitting and hand-wringing taking place over same-sex marriage should not detract from the heart of the matter: The universal human desire to love and be loved and the right of all people to be respected and treated with dignity.
Copyright 2005, The Hartford Courant
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