Marriage versus Civil Unions, Domestic Partnerships, Etc.
Rather than ending marriage discrimination outright—the only way to provide equality—an increasing number of states are creating a parallel mechanism either with civil unions, domestic partnerships or some lesser package of protections and responsibilities.
While these mechanisms do provide same-sex couples with important responsibilities and protections previously withheld, we are constantly witnessing the shortcomings of such separate and unequal institutions.
Use the key resources below to learn more about marriage versus civil unions, domestic partnerships, or any other lesser package of protections and responsibilities.
DEFINITIONS:
CIVIL UNIONS: Civil unions exist in only three places: Vermont, New Jersey, and Connecticut (New Hampshire's civil union law will go into effect beginning January 2008). Vermont civil unions were the first to be created, in 2000, to provide some legal protections and responsibilities to gay and lesbian couples at the state level. Cobbled together as both the state and the nation were just beginning to engage in a conversation about the inherent unfairness of legal discrimination in marriage, civil unions have since proven to be ineffective, a separate but unequal status (pdf) that often heightens the need for access to both the tangible and intangible protections that only marriage can afford. The protections and responsibilities do not extend beyond the border of the states in which the civil union was entered, offer murky access to separation laws, and no federal protections are included with a civil union.
DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP: Domestic partnerships are a form of union under which gay (and sometimes non-gay) couples in some states or regions can formalize their partnerships. California offers the most comprehensive domestic partner laws in the country. Oregon's domestic partnership law went into effect February 2008. However, as with civil unions the status remains a separate and unequal legal compromise which does not apply when a couple travels out of state, and offers no federal protections. Outside of California, a hodge-podge of domestic partner laws and registries offer a wildly varying selection of protections and responsibilities which can change from zip code to zip code. Many domestic partnership registries offer no rights or protections at all and simply serve as a written acknowledgment of a couple's commitment to each other.
RECIPROCAL BENEFITS: Reciprocal benefits, a set of specific state protections, only exist in Hawaii. They were created in 1997 to give some protections to same-sex couples after Hawaii rushed through a constitutional amendment to enshrine the exclusion of committed same-sex couples from marriage in response to a court ruling which insisted that such exclusion was unconstitutional. In 2005, Oregon began considering adding a similarly limited reciprocal benefits law to its books after that state also passed a 2004 constitutional amendment excluding lesbian and gay couples from marriage. Reciprocal Benefits provide limited state rights to couples who are barred by law from marriage i.e. same-sex couples in Hawaii. Such benefits include medical visitation and property rights, but are extremely limited compared to the responsibilities and protections, both tangible and intangible, that come with marriage.
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FROM EVAN WOLFSON:
"Marriage Makes a Word of Difference" (pdf)
Evan Wolfson answers the question so often asked of same-sex couples wanting to end their exclusion from marriage, "Why can't you just call it something else?," by explaining how the "clarity, security, and dignity [of the word marriage] is precious and irreplaceable."
Marriage Equality is Within Reach, If We Do the Reaching (and Don't Under-Reach)
Evan Wolfson discusses the importance of those who favor equality and inclusion to help explain to the "reachable middle" why, "The right way to end discrimination in marriage is to, well, end discrimination in marriage. Not create something new, different, lesser, or other."
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WHERE YOU CAN GO TO GET INVOLVED OR LEARN MORE:
Civil Unions Don't Work
You can witness the failure of New Jersey's civil union law through eight hours of evidence captured on videotape, read a report on the law, and much more.
Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD)
GLAD's marriage equality webpage contains a Comparison Chart: Marriage v. Civil Unions v. No Marital Status and Civil Marriage v. Civil Unions: What's the Difference?, discussing framing the debate of civil unions versus marriage. They also offer numerous other resources.
Love Makes
A Family
Love Makes a Family's Get Informed webpage offers a Marriage Equality Overview and Fact Sheets which address the issue of why civil unions are unequal to marriage and why marriage matters.
Consider writing a letter to the editor like this one:
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Why marriage is important
This September my civil union partner and I will celebrate 32 years of our long-term commitment. It would be so much easier to proclaim that we are a married couple, and more understandable, especially to those who live outside of Vermont and the United States. Try traveling to a state that does not recognize civil unions, which is 47 states in the United States. If you think civil unions are good enough, ask a gay friend or family member.
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LEGISLATIVE STATUS OF MARRIAGE VS. CIVIL UNIONS, ETC. IN THE U.S.:
Map: Broad Family Measures Short of Marriage (.jpg)
Freedom to Marry's most up-to-date map of states that offer broad family measures such as civil unions or domestic partnerships, but still fall short of marriage.
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THE NUMBERS: POLLING & STATISTICS:
63% of New Jersey voters say they'd be fine with the state legislature upgrading civil unions to marriage equality. [Zogby Poll, August 2007]
More Connecticut voters believe same-sex couples deserve marriage itself rather than civil union. [Quinnipac Poll, February 2007]
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PUBLICATIONS:
Report of the Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection
The Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection (the "Commission") reviews and evaluates Vermont's laws relating to the recognition and protection of same-sex couples and the families they form. Civil unions are found to not provide the fairness and equality they were intended to offer same-sex couples and their families.
First Interim Report of the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission
The New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission published a report which determined New Jersey's civil union law "is not clear to the general public" and "creates a second-class status" for those who have filed for civil unions, among many other challenges that prove the law does not accomplish what it was intended to do--provide protections and benefits of marriage to same-sex couples and their families.
Why Marriage? (pdf)
Quick answers as to why civil union, domestic partnership, or any other second-class status isn't good enough.
Comparison Chart: Marriage v. Civil Unions v. No Marital Status
Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD)
GLAD answers the question 'What's the difference?' by breaking down the specific differences between marriage, civil unions, and no marital status in an accessible one page chart.
Marriage is More Than a Word
Love Makes a Family
Love Makes a Family explains why marriage is more than just a word and how civil unions have numerous limitations.
New Hampshire Civil Unions
Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD)
GLAD addresses common questions about the civil union law in New Hampshire which will go into effect in January 2008.
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NEWS:
Civil unions fall short, but panel neutral on next move
A panel charged with studying Vermont's eight-year experiment with civil unions for same-sex couples found this separate track from marriage fails to provide the equality and fairness promised when the law was passed in 2000.
The Joy of Marriage Was Ours, for a While
Torie Osborn writes how getting married to her former partner in San Francisco changed her personal ideas about the importance of the freedom to marry: “The astonishing outpouring of support from our straight friends taught me a profound lesson: getting married is a rite of passage into a wide circle of shared humanity. With a real wedding — not a commitment ceremony, not a domestic partnership registry — we were initiated into a crowded circle of people who automatically affirmed our very beings. It was a club we never even knew existed until we joined.”
Legal unions still have shortfalls for gays
Columnist Deb Price gives various examples of the shortfalls of civil unions and domestic partnerships: “Though a good start, the patchwork of protections for gay couples remains a fragile safety net.”
Gay Couple Loses Benefits With Move
A gay couple in a civil union from New Jersey moved to Idaho and found they lost many of the protections to which they had grown accustomed. The ACLU is helping them fight for health insurance.
More Taxing For Some
Tax time is taxing enough. But consider the plight of Jason Smith and his partner, Settimio Pisu of Guilford. The same-sex couple, as well as their peers, must file not one, not two, but three tax returns by April 15. That's because they are joined not in marriage, but by civil union, the only legal option for same-sex couples in Connecticut. Because there is no federal recognition of marriage for same-sex couples or unions, they must file separate returns as well as a joint return, which is used as a work sheet to calculate their Connecticut taxes.
Majority In VT Support Changing Civil Unions To Marriage
As a state commission prepares its report on whether to amend Vermont's civil union law to end the exclusion from marriage a new poll finds that the majority of people in the state believe gay and lesbian couples should have the freedom to marry. The survey was taken of people attending town meetings across the state. It found that 54% said they support marriage equality while 37% were opposed.
Same-Sex Couple Blocked By H & R
A Conn. gay couple in a civil union found themselves banned from jointly filing their taxes on H&R Block's website despite state law requiring equal treatment to couples in civil unions.
Tales Told of Unequal Unions
Bureaucratic confusion and a “single mom” talk turned a glorious moment — the birth of her son — into a trying time for Holly Robinson, who offered her tale to support an effort to fight discrimination against couples in civil unions.
Civil Unions Aren’t Enough
As a case is pending in the Connecticut Supreme Court which seeks to end CT’s exclusion of lesbian and gay couples from marriage, a legislative committee holds a hearing to discuss how the state’s civil union law has not delivered equality for same-sex couples and their families. The New York Times interviews Evan Wolfson: Civil unions require constant "haggling, litigation and explanation,” he said. Being married means “you don’t have to fumble for documents. You don’t have to hire an attorney, and you don’t have to consult a dictionary. You’re married. You know what it means, and everyone else knows what it means.”
OPINION: Matters of the 'M' Word
"The first time I met a married lesbian couple I was surprised by how deeply moved I was. They weren't married in the euphemistic sense so often used by my gay and lesbian friends, but they were really, truly, legally married. And when I think of the thousands of couples who waited in line to get married in San Francisco in February 2004, only to have their marriages annulled, I get it. The word 'marriage' does have a special meaning – a meaning far more understandable and significant than the detached, antiseptic and clinical term 'domestic partnership.'"
Lawmakers to review civil union revisions
A state General Assembly committee is to revisit the state's civil unions law Monday, while a decision from the state Supreme Court about the legality of denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples is pending. Anne Stanback, executive director of Love Makes a Family, said some members of her organization plan to attend Monday's public hearing to argue that civil union "fixes" don't go far enough. "You can't really fix civil unions," she said. "The only way to give same-sex couples full protections and full equality is with marriage. We appreciate that they're trying to do everything that they can, but for us the bottom line is civil unions are an inadequate substitute for marriage."
MD lawmakers urged to avoid civil union 'disaster'
Steven Goldstein remembers once touting civil unions as “a big step forward” for gay couples. But one year after New Jersey enacted the option and inadvertently triggered a host of unforeseen problems, the chair of Garden State Equality told Maryland legislators they can do better. “I’m here to tell you today that the New Jersey civil union law is a disaster,” he said. “It is not working like marriage. It is proving that civil unions are no compromise. Civil unions do not provide all the rights and benefits of marriage simply without the name. Civil unions are not a major step forward.”
Marriage for same-sex couples -- it's personal
As the high court considers ending the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage, couples who wed in the Bay Area savor the joy of the institution…"The world knows how to acknowledge a marriage," [state Sen. Sheila Kuehl] said. "They congratulate you. They send presents. They understand that it is a significant and joyful milestone. No one knows what to do with a domestic partnership registry."
OPINION: Marital Melee
"Whatever the advisability or inadvisability of gay marriage, it would change the definition only for gays, by including them in marriage’s legal ambit. As for the others, 'the rest of society,' pardon us if we are being obtuse, but we fail to see how the definition of marriage would change for them. For the overwhelming majority of society, traditional opposite-sex marriage would still be traditional opposite-sex marriage, wouldn’t it?"
Toasting an Oscar Win, Hoping for Greater Rights
It was part Oscar party and part civil rights rally. More than 300 people filled a theater here to standing-room-only capacity on Sunday evening to watch “Freeheld,” which won the Academy Award for best documentary short subject…According to Steven Goldstein, president of Garden State Equality, more than 2,400 couples in New Jersey have entered into same-sex unions, and about one-fourth of them have filed complaints with Garden State Equality over benefits. The group is an advocacy organization for gay, lesbian and transgender people in New Jersey. “I wish this film had a happy ending,” Mr. Goldstein shouted to the crowd after the credits rolled. “It does not. Our civil union law is failing; it is not respected like marriage.”
OPINION: Elusive Equality
The Times editorial staff says N.J. civil unions provide inadequate protection for gay couples and that it will take "political courage," not "more dawdling," to end the exclusion of same-sex couples and their families from marriage.
Oregon's Domestic Partnership Law Runs into Murky Waters
When Sally Sparks and her partner, Heather Dugas, registered as domestic partners at the Multnomah County Building the day the new state law took effect on February 4, Sparks was overdue with their second child...The law took effect in time for their son's birth, but the women still ran into red tape. Instead of noting Dugas' name on the birth certificate forms—which had not changed to reflect the new law, and only had spaces for a mother and father—a clerk at Providence St. Vincent Family Maternity Center handed her a separate form. Marked "For informational purposes only. This is not a legal document," the form has spaces for info on the child, mother, and partner.
Report criticizes NJ civil union law
A New Jersey commission has found in an initial report that civil unions - approved a year ago in an attempt to ensure equal rights for same-sex couples - are falling short of the goal. It said that employers were still discriminating against those in same-sex relationships and that civil unions were "not clear to the general public, which creates a second-class status."
Marriage vs. civil union: What's in a name matters
For too many families across New Jersey, the warning of former New Jersey Chief Justice Deborah Poritz has proven prophetic. "What we name things matters, language matters," she wrote in her dissent in the 2006 Supreme Court decision that led to civil unions rather than marriage for same-sex couples. "By excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage, the state declares that it is legitimate to differentiate between their commitments and the commitments of heterosexual couples."
Report: Civil union law fails to achieve goal of equality
Judy Ford of Port Norris formed a civil union last April to add her partner to her health insurance plan. But the medical center that employs Ford used a loophole in federal law to deny coverage to her partner, Yvonne Mazzola. Now, because of her civil union, she would be liable for her partner's uninsured medical bills. They might dissolve their civil union. "It only puts us in a precarious legal situation," said Ford. "Now we have a civil union with no benefit and only detriment."
Domestic Partnerships Allowed in Oregon
A state law allowing gay couples to register as domestic partners belatedly took effect Friday after a federal judge ruled the state's process of disqualifying petition signatures was consistent enough to be valid. The state quickly announced that the domestic partnership applications were available online, and jubilant gay-rights activists predicted hundreds of couples would line up on Monday morning at county offices to register.
Domestic partners two-timed
California's registered domestic partners are sailing in uncharted territory this tax season. For the first time, a landmark state law requires them to file their taxes as married couples — even though federal tax laws don't recognize such unions.
WA lawmakers hope to expand domestic partnership law
Lawmakers are looking to expand the state's domestic partnership law by granting same-sex couples more than 170 of the benefits and responsibilities given to married couples, including property and guardianship rights. "It's a significant piece of legislation, but it still leaves hundreds of rights and benefits and responsibilities of marriage out," Senator Ed Murray said, noting that the bill only covers a fraction of the 485 rights and responsibilities married couples have. Murray said gay rights supporters will come back every year to introduce new rights until eventually they get to marriage.
OPINION: Marriages, Civil Unions Collide In Court
A pending decision by the Connecticut Supreme Court will determine whether Connecticut must recognize same-sex marriage. California's highest court will address the same issue later in the year. Although these cases look similar to other lawsuits around the country, they could mark the beginning of a much more complicated stage in the shaping of laws concerning same-sex couples.
Dozens promote equality
Members of the community — both gay and straight — including doctors, teachers, lawyers, reverends and a rabbi, supported marriage equality at a public hearing Saturday before a commission charged with reporting its findings to the Legislature. Most in support. Dozens of people, many wearing stickers supporting the Vermont Freedom to Marry task force, urged the committee to support ending the exclusion of same-sex couples and their families from marriage on Saturday.
VT Marriage Equality Debate Tamer This Time
For many who lived through Vermont's not-so-civil debate over civil unions, the memories remain painfully fresh: hate mail, threatening telephone messages, tense public meetings. This time around, as the state weighs marriage equality, the debate is noticeably tamer with little of the vitriol and recrimination that surrounded its groundbreaking 2000 decision to legally recognize gay and lesbian couples. ''It's a very different tenor,'' said Beth Robinson, chairwoman of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, which supports the freedom to marry. ''People have had an opportunity to come to terms. Vermonters have had eight years to see the two guys next door, or the two women down the street who have a legally recognized relationship under the civil unions law.''
Less than two weeks in, N.H. civil unions near 100
Nearly 100 same-sex couples have been joined in civil unions since they became legal in New Hampshire on New Year’s Day. “I think mostly people are saying, ‘Let’s take the legal protections we can right now and keep up the fight,’’’ said Mo Baxley, a state lawmaker and executive director of the New Hampshire Freedom to Marry Coalition, which supports full marriage for gay people. Baxley says she already has heard from state residents who have been surprised to learn that civil unions don’t provide all the benefits of heterosexual marriage. “People are starting to understand exactly what this law means and what it doesn’t mean,” she said.
Crossing the border
With New Hampshire joining the ranks of the civil union states this year, same-sex couples can now obtain all of the legal state benefits of marriage in four of the six New England states, either through civil unions in New Hampshire, Vermont and Connecticut or through marriage in Massachusetts. But what happens when you cross state lines? Legal professionals at Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) answer some intricate questions dealing with civil unions and what they mean for couples, particularly dealing with parenting.
NJ's civil union law is a
fiasco
At the first public hearing of the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission, Garden State Equality presented a mountain of new evidence showing the failure of New Jersey's civil union law to provide equality as real marriage would. 30 civil-unioned couples from across New Jersey presented a joint letter to state leaders. An expert from Vermont testified that civil unions in Vermont still don't work like marriage, seven years after Vermont enacted a civil unions law.
OPINION: Justice for NJ
To eliminate any confusion, the New Jersey Legislature should do what it failed to do last winter: legalize gay and lesbian couples' marriages. That way, all the stories can have happy endings, and gay couples can have the equal rights they deserve.
In civil unions, new challenges over benefits
New Jersey's civil union law was supposed to fulfill the State Supreme Court's mandate that gay and non-gay couples be granted the same rights and benefits. But more than five months after its adoption, the reality of the law's application remained a hodgepodge, and that hundreds of people were struggling to persuade their bosses to treat their partners like spouses.
OPINION: Domestic partnerships aren't marriages
An op-ed writer addresses the real world challenges of the second-class status of domestic partnerships in California, saying "This legislation gives us many of the same rights and benefits as married couples, but the two statuses have different procedural protections, social meanings and legal effects."
Civil union laws don't ensure benefits
A main theme of this article is that federal law too often provides a loophole for employers not to provide civil union benefits — but that in Massachusetts, the word "marriage" carries persuasive weight with employers so that they far less frequently deny benefits than we see happening in New Jersey. Marriage equality works. Civil unions do not.
CT marriage case is breaking new ground
Connecticut's highest court became the first in the nation to hear arguments over whether the establishment of civil unions created a fundamentally inferior status for gays and lesbians.
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MULTIMEDIA:
Civil Unions Don't Work
Watch videos explaining why civil unions don't work and learn more about what is going on in New Jersey to win marriage equality.
VIDEO: Marriage Makes a Word of Difference
Emmy award-winning director Fran Rzeznik of Guilford has created a remarkable and compelling film, Marriage Makes a Word of Difference, which portrays the personal struggles and political challenges of Connecticut’s same-sex couples and their families who are fighting for the freedom to marry. Many of these loving couples have been in committed relationships for more than a decade, but despite their dedication to each other, they continue to be denied the respect, dignity, and legal protections that marriage provides. Through compelling interviews and archival and “slice of life” footage, Marriage Makes a Word of Difference celebrates our common humanity, and shows why marriage equality is a fundamental civil right.
AUDIO: 'It's a matter of equality'
In the three years since marriage equality became a reality in Massachusetts, interest in — and enthusiasm for — civil unions has dropped off sharply in the four states that allow them.
AUDIO: KEYNOTE SPEECH: Evan Wolfson at the Legal Marriage Alliance
Wolfson says, "The best way to end discrimination in marriage is through marriage," and explains that marriage is a statement and symbol of commitment and love; to be denied that statement is unequal and unfair.
VIDEO: Civil Unions Don't Work
Garden State Equality
"Marriage is the only currency of commitment that is universally accepted in the real world," explains Steven Goldstein, executive director of Garden State Equality, in this moving video showcasing one Camden, New Jersey couple who faced devastating discrimination when one was hospitalized. This painful incident took place despite the couple having done all the right things to secure protection including securing both a legal domestic partnership and a civil union.
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Evan Wolfson answers the question so often asked of same-sex couples wanting to end their exclusion from marriage, "Why can't you just call it something else?," by explaining how the "clarity, security, and dignity [of the word marriage] are precious and irreplaceable."(pdf link)
Evan Wolfson discusses the importance of those who favor equality and inclusion to help explain to the "reachable middle" why, "The right way to end discrimination in marriage is to, well, end discrimination in marriage. Not create something new, different, lesser, or other." (link)
Quick answers as to why civil union, domestic partnership, or any other second-class status isn't good enough. (pdf link)
Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD)
October 17, 2006
GLAD answers the question 'What's the difference?' by breaking down the specific differences between marriage, civil unions, and no marital status in an accessible one page chart.
