2012: Big gains for same-sex marriage

This year was a turning point in efforts to achieve marriage equality. For the first time, voters on Election Day agreed to allow same-sex marriage. Not once. Not twice. Three times! In all three states where the issue was on the ballot, marriage equality won. Same-sex couples are now being wed in Maine and Washington State. Maryland's referendum will take effect on New Year's Day. 

Nine states (New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Iowa, Maine, Washington State and Maryland) and the District of Columbia give same-sex couples the right to marry. 

Jamous Lizzotte, left, and Steven Jones
 became the first gay couple to wed when
Maine's marriage equality law took effect Friday

In yet another landmark, Minnesota on Election Day became the first state in the nation to reject a proposal to ban same-sex relationships through a constitutional amendment. The state still retains a law prohibiting marriage equality, but a constitutional amendment would have enshrined that ban permanently.

"This is a real sea change moment," Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson told The Huffington Post. "This is a real national moment. It shows America is ready for the mainstreaming of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people."

Before November's victories, opponents of marriage equality had a 32-state winning streak to block same-sex unions or to write marriage prohibitions into state constitutions. One of their triumphs, California's Proposition 8, is now before the U.S. Supreme Court (for details, see the December 9, 2012, post).

Nine other states offer broad protections short of marriage. Illinois, Hawaii, Delaware, Rhode Island and New Jersey allow civil union. California, Oregon and Nevada allow broad domestic partnership. Two other states--Colorado and Wisconsin--have a limited form of domestic partnership. New Jersey's governor vetoed a marriage law earlier this year, but work is underway to override the veto.


On the national scene, President Obama refused to support the federal Defense of Marriage Act in challenge of the law now before the Supreme Court. Republicans in the House of Representatives stepped in to take on the case, but there remains a question of whether they lack the standing to sue on the law's behalf. 

The Supreme Court is expected to decide the California ban and DOMA by June 30, 2013.

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