The news that Connecticut has now legalized marriage for gays and lesbians has huge implications for a lot of people even though it's the third state to make marriage legal and is a comparatively small state. The fact that New York now will recognize any out of state marriage between gay men and lesbians means that this ruling affects, not only Connecticut resident, but the hundreds of thousands of gay people living in New York State, and New York City, a short train ride away.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out in the presidential race too: The pressure will be on John McCain from evangelicals to back the federal marriage amendment. He had said if this gay marriage thing spread further -- which he did not think it would -- me might have to back to FMA.
This ruling also shows the significance of the Californa ruling, and the California Supreme Court. The Connecticut court used the same legal rationale:
In his majority opinion, Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote that the court found that the “segregation of heterosexual and homosexual couples into separate institutions constitutes a cognizable harm,” in light of “the history of pernicious discrimination faced by gay men and lesbians, and because the institution of marriage carries with it a status and significance that the newly created classification of civil unions does not embody.”
Indeed.
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