Yes! Go Connecticut!

An article for those of you who haven't heard yet!

Connecticut okays same-sex marriage.

Connecticut's Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex couples have the right to marry, making the state the third behind Massachusetts and California to legalize such unions. The divided court ruled 4-3 that gay and lesbian couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry under the state constitution, and Connecticut's civil unions law does not provide those couples with the same rights as heterosexual couples.

"Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice," Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote in the majority opinion that overturned a lower court finding. "To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others," Palmer wrote.

I am absolutely thrilled about this. I've been seriously considering for a long time now that as long as a same-sex couple cannot marry in my state, I won't marry either. I'll get a domestic partnership agreement or whatever it is they're allowed to do. My small part to erode the "separate but equal" tripe that privileges my relationship above a same-sex relationship for no good reason.

While Indiana is certainly a long ways away from coastal states that are giving all their residents the same freedom to participate in the same legal contracts regardless of sex, this is hope. And I'm glad of it, for all of us.