Rutland Herald

http://www.rutlandherald.com/vtruling/connlaw.html

Conn Lawmakers Consider Gay marriage Bill

March 13, 2001

The Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn - Supporters of same-sex marriage laws are optimistic that Connecticut will become the next state to legally recognize gay and lesbian couples.

Lawmakers say the proposal has drawn growing interest in the General Assembly. Legislators already have agreed to extend health insurance coverage to partners of state employees, and they also enacted a hate crime law related to violence against homosexuals.

The Legislature's Judiciary Committee has scheduled an unprecedented hearing on same-sex marriages on March 16.

Vermont lawmakers last year approved a proposal allowing civil unions that granted same-sex couples nearly all the benefits, protections and responsibilities that married couples have. The law, however, stopped short of allowing same-sex marriages.

The Vermont measure also drew a sharp political backlash on Election Day. Gov. Howard Dean, who signed the bill, survived an election challenge by a foe of civil unions, but more than 20 legislators who supported the law were defeated.

In Nevada and Nebraska, voters approved measures to define marriage to rule out same-sex civil unions.

"Connecticut is seen as a state that definitely has a better possibility of passing something similar to Vermont ," said Anne Stanback, president of Love Makes a Family, a Connecticut gay rights organization.

Proposed same-sex marriage laws also are being debated in 10 or 11 other states.

Stanback's group led a successful effort last year to get the Connecticut Legislature to enact a law that allowed same-sex couples to adopt children.

But the proposal wasn't free of controversy, and it took two years for it to be approved.

In 1999, opponents of "the gay adoption bill" amended it to include a Defense of Marriage provision, which would have made it a law that Connecticut only recognizes marriage between men and women.

Supporters pulled the bill after the amendment passed.

Stanback and others expect the Defense of Marriage concept to be revived as lawmakers debate same-sex marriage.

In 1996, Congress passed legislation, which was signed into law by then-President Clinton, prohibiting federal recognition of same-sex marriages. Since 1995, 34 states also have prohibited same-sex marriages, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

State Rep. Peter Nystrom, R-Norwich, a 15-year veteran of the Judiciary Committee, and an opponent of same-sex marriage, said he expects a bill to ban same-sex marriages to be introduced if one that allows it arises.

Nystrom said he and several other lawmakers are frustrated that the issue is being debated because they were promised last year that the gay adoption bill wouldn't lead to a gay marriage proposal this year.

"We were told it wouldn't come up," Nystrom said. "There's resentment out there, I know that. I suspect if this comes to a vote on the floor this year, you won't have a temperate debate."

State Rep. Arthur Feltman, D-Hartford, a vice chairman of the Judiciary Committee and one of a handful of openly gay lawmakers in the General Assembly, said he sees the March 16 hearing as a starting point.

"What you don't want to do is put a concept up there and make people feel uncomfortable," Feltman said. "We really need to give people some more background and get people thinking about it."