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Full-Text Articles in Law
Marriage Equality For Same-Sex Couples: Where We Are And Where We Are Going, Jennifer Levi
Marriage Equality For Same-Sex Couples: Where We Are And Where We Are Going, Jennifer Levi
Faculty Scholarship
The legal landscape for same-sex couples seeking to marry has shifted dramatically over the last five years. On October 10, 2008, the Connecticut Supreme Court became the third state high court to rule that its state constitution could not sustain a statutory framework that excludes same-sex couples from marrying, following the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on November 18, 2003, and the California Supreme Court on May 15, 2008. Same-sex couples throughout the country have gotten married in Connecticut, Massachusetts, California, and in other countries throughout the world that provide full marriage equality, including in Canada. The Author discusses the developments …
Toward A More Perfect Union: The Road To Marriage Equality For Same-Sex Couples, Jennifer L. Levi
Toward A More Perfect Union: The Road To Marriage Equality For Same-Sex Couples, Jennifer L. Levi
Faculty Scholarship
The Author believes that civil unions have become synonymous with inequality. In this posture, the term inequality should be descriptive rather than subjective. She argues that civil unions relegate gay and lesbian couples to second-class status. However characterized or defined, civil unions are not marriages. Those two statuses are not equivalent; they are not equal. Within that framework, in order for any one person to decide where he or she stands on the issue of whether gay and lesbian couples should be entitled to marriage, civil unions, something else, or nothing, he or she must first understand why marriage matters …