Toward Equality

AS WE NOTE above, the District is far from alone in grappling with the legal issues posed by same-sex relationships. In a backlash to the requirement by the high court of Massachusetts that the state recognize same-sex marriage, many states passed constitutional amendments defining marriage exclusively as between a man and a woman.

But there is a less visible but important countercurrent. A number of legislatures have moved to recognize spousal rights for unmarried couples in committed relationships. The Maryland General Assembly recently passed a bill that gives gay couples -- as well as unmarried heterosexual couples -- the ability to make medical decisions for one another. More dramatically, the Connecticut legislature approved a bill creating Vermont-style civil unions.

The Maryland law is an incremental but useful step. If Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) signs it -- and he has expressed sympathy with its purpose while not saying what he intends to do -- it would allow unmarried couples to register with the state and guarantee them the ability to visit one another in hospitals, make medical decisions when the other is unable to do so, authorize autopsies and make funeral arrangements. The value here is not merely that the law would ensure that gay partners are treated as family decision makers when their loved ones are ill or dying. It is also significant that the bill would create an official status under state law for gay relationships in the first place.

The Connecticut bill is more far-reaching.

It is perhaps the most dramatic gay rights legislation any state has adopted without a court's forcing the legislature's hand. It has solid public support, and the state's Republican governor, M. Jodi Rell, endorsed it after it was amended to reserve marriage for opposite-sex couples. In other words, the debate in Connecticut is largely over the word "marriage," not over whether the rights attached to that word should be extended to same-sex couples. It is a breakthrough in the politics of gay relationships that a state political system has, without being forced by its courts, reached such a judgment.

Connecticut may not be alone for long. Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) has announced his support for civil unions. California already has a strong domestic partnership law, one that rivals civil unions in the scope of the rights it grants. And other states have granted lesser domestic partnership rights to gay couples. Even in a national political environment distressingly hostile to gay relationships, progress is not merely possible but actual.