Civilized!

On Tuesday, the Colorado General Assembly voted to legalize civil unions for same-sex couples in Colorado. To understate the point, this is huge! It’s something activists in the state have worked long and hard to achieve. In this state, it’s made even more marvelous by the fact that just 20 years ago, some folks were calling Colorado the “hate state” for its passage of Amendment 2.

Back then, Colorado was notorious as the (to all media appearances) least LGBTQ-friendly place in the nation. In truth, that judgment was overblown—media frenzies do that. And in truth, Amendment 2 ended up having some very positive long-term consequences—including, arguably, Tuesday’s success. But no one could have predicted that just two decades later, same-sex couples would have that same state’s approval to form legal unions. It’s not yet the whole shebang, and folks were pointing out that it wasn’t marriage before the applause even died down. But it’s a step—a giant step—in this long trek.

Besides, for Coloradans this really is as good as it gets … at least for now. Civil unions are the greatest possible victory in a state that has an explicit constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. We’re not the only state in this particular fix. It’s one of several patterns in the crazy-quilt national patchwork of state-by-state laws that include legal support for, indifference to, and prohibition against same-sex unions of various sorts. The result can be a legal and logistic nightmare for same-sex couples, who may be married in one state, have no legal protection in the next, and see their relationship explicitly negated in a third.

Who can possibly keep up with it all? Well, conveniently, Sean Sullivan, a blogger for the Washington Post, has done us the great favor of summarizing the current status (well, current until Tuesday) of various laws and constitutional amendments related to same-sex marriage (ssm) around the country. To see where your state stacks up (and to be astonished at the piecemeal quality of marriage rights at this juncture), check out his blog here. These maps are really eye opening. Some of them are also clickable, if you want even more detail about your state—or someone else’s, for that matter.

All of this becomes really relevant given the pending Supreme Court consideration of two marriage equality cases, which I wrote about recently. It turns out that the potential impact of these two cases is greatly complicated by this legal hodgepodge. Right now, nine states and DC have marriage equality. The rest have an assortment of conditions ranging from constitutional and legal prohibitions on ssm through various partnership and civil union statutes (and various combinations of the above) to total silence on the issue. The two cases that will soon be considered by the Supreme Court may solve none, some, or all of these discrepancies among states.

One case challenges California’s Proposition 8, which rescinded marriage rights briefly accorded in that state. That ruling could affect only California or, in the broadest case, it could affect all states with legal bans on ssm (like Colorado). The other case challenges the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA; in all federal matters, marriage is between one man and one woman). It argues that it’s unconstitutional for the federal government to refuse federal marriage rights (social security, tax benefits, etc.) to married same-sex partners living in states where marriage is legal. This ruling could have a narrow impact (in just those nine states and DC). Alternatively, a broad ruling could ripple far beyond those jurisdictions, opening the way to broader enactment of marriage equality laws.

To add to the uncertainty, legal technicalities could influence both these rulings and their long-term impact. Basically, the court could decide these cases in a million different ways (approximately). If you’re curious about these things, here’s a pretty comprehensive discussion of the ins and outs of the matter.

Most folks who track these things carefully (which does not include me, except remotely) expect that the court’s rulings will not be so broad as to affect marriage rights in all the individual states. With the current court’s conservative leanings, we might even hope that the rulings will be narrow, since having a negative outcome from the Supremes at this point could stall the movement for a long time. In fact, some people argue that, given the recent rather steady—and occasionally dramatic—progress toward acceptance of marriage equality, we might be better off with the slow, steady slog of legislative and ballot box change. Whatever, hope springs eternal.

Stay tuned. The court will be hearing oral arguments on these cases on March 26 and 27, and they’ll probably issue rulings by June.