Talk:Recognition of gay unions in Connecticut
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I'm struggling with the basis for the last sentence in the lead paragraph:
Connecticut became the fifth state in the United States (following Vermont, Maine, California, and New Jersey) to adopt civil unions or domestic partnership, and the first to do so without judicial intervention.
(emphasis added.)
Obviously Vermont's legislature acted at the direction of the courts.
New Jersey certainly had a case pending at the time it's legislature acted. But, the N.J. courts certainly hadn't directed the legislature to do anything at all. Obviously, today the N.J. Supreme Court mandated an expansion (or replacement) of the existing statutory scheme. I concede that the threat of a ruling like today's casts some doubt on New Jersey's as being without some speculative judicial threat.
California's history is rather convoluted, but it clearly predated Connecticut's enactment. I'm willing to discount California's first few laws creating and expanding the domestic-partner registry, as they were pretty anemic (my own editorial judgment). A.B. 205, signed into law in September 2003 and taking effect on January 1, 2005, however, was sufficiently sweeping that it seems to be of the same class as Connecticut's scheme. To what judicial mandate (or a substantial threat of one) do we attribute the legislature's action in passing A.B. 205?
Or, perhaps, there is some unstated distinction between California's program and Connecticut's? If so, what it is? Certainly there are differences, but I question that they give rise to an entirely different category of legislation.
For that matter, some mention of Hawaii might be in order. That's a somewhat different beast with a substantially different story.
Wonderbreadsf 00:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] updates?
I'm a relatively new Wikipedian, so I'm not sure as to the protocols for substantially changing an article.
I bring this up because this article could use some cleaning/updating. Most notably, the CT Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments regarding whether the CT constitution requires that civil unions be called marriages. I'd be happy to make these changes, but didn't know if that's the original author's job.Ronnotronald 15:38, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
