CT Governor Signs Civil Union Bill

April 21, 2005

HARTFORD — Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell wasted no time Wednesday signing a bill creating civil unions in the state less than an hour after it passed its final hurdle in the legislature.

The bill gives same-sex couples many of the rights of marriage.

The House voted 85-63 last week after a clause was added defining marriage as being between one man and one woman. The addition of the marriage clause had been set by Rell as a requirement before she would agree to sign it.

The Senate version of the bill sailed through that body on a 27-9 vote a week earlier (story) but without the marriage definition.

Today, the Senate approved the inclusion of the definition to the cheers of supporters in the public gallery.

The vote we cast today will reverberate around the country and it will send a wave of hope to many people, to thousands of people across the country, said Sen. Andrew McDonald, co-chairman of the legislature's Judiciary Committee, and one of a few openly gay state lawmakers. Love Makes a Family, a gay rights organization that wanted legislators pass a gay marriage bill, called civil unions an important step toward protecting the rights of same-sex couples. But Anne Stanback, the group's executive director, said the fight is not over.

As important as the rights are, this is not yet equality, she said.

Connecticut's legislature has recognized the existence and reality of same-sex families, and has stepped up to the plate to provide those families with much-needed protections said Mary L. Bonauto, director of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders Civil Rights Project.

They have not chosen the simplest, fairest way to provide those protections — marriage — but we look forward to the time when Connecticut's same-sex couples will be able to legally wed.

Massachusetts is the only state which allows same-sex marriage. Connecticut now becomes the second state to legalize civil unions after Vermont.

Last week Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski said he would press that state's legislature to approve a civil unions bill this year to give same-sex couples some of the rights bestowed on married couples.