Summary: 2001-2004
The opening years of the 2000s were monumental.
We saw The Netherlands and, later, Belgium and Canada, grant full legal marriage to same-sex couples – and none of them fell into the ocean.
We saw courts in several states considering the Vermont civil unions – and most of them spitting them out like a bad peanut.
|
| Scalia |
In 2003’s Lawrence v. Texas, we saw the US Supreme Court saying the government had no business telling people whom they could have sex with – and Justice Scalia saying that the same guarantee of privacy would logically pertain to marriage as well, and that the procreation argument wouldn’t fly “since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry”.
But the biggest news was
Goodridge v. Department Of Public Health
in Massachusetts where the state supreme court said that, to treat couples fairly,
it has to be marriage – the gold standard, tarnished only by the governor’s
over-my-dead-body response.
Timeline key: progress (green),
no progress (red),
pending court cases (purple),
events that are neutral, not directly related, or with both positive and negative effects (black)
updated 17 Aug 2008