Summary: 2007-2008

Sean Fritz embraces his
new husband Tim McQuillan
in Iowa

The big news of 2007 was the marriage of Tim McQuillan and Sean Fritz in Iowa, following the favorable lower court decision in Varnum v. Brien that said same-sex couples deserve the right to marry. McQuillan and Fritz were the only couple who were able to marry during the hours-long window before the judge stayed his ruling pending a review by the state supreme court.

Also that year, the Massachusetts court said it was ok for New Mexico couples to marry in Massachusettes, considering that New Mexico doesn’t explicitly preclude same-sex couples from marrying.

And for the second time, the California legislature passed a law allowing same-sex couples to marry – only to see it once again vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who, unlike any other opponent of marriage equality, said it was up to the courts, not the legislature, to decide.

But the big disappointment of the year was Maryland’s Deane v. Conaway which, like recent cases from other states, decided that same-sex couples – unlike opposite-sex couples – do not have a fundamental civil right to marry.

Ken Molsberry, author (left),
marries Chris Vincent
in California

In 2008, California became the second state to allow same-sex couples to marry and the first state to allow out-of-state same-sex couples to marry there. The state supreme court ruled, in In re: Marriage Cases, that, even though they had domestic partnerships (civil unions), denying to same-sex couples the word and institution called marriage failed to accord them equal dignity, equal respect, and equal treatment and was therefore unconstitutional. Further, it ruled that sexual orientation was a suspect class deserving of strict scrutiny in equal protection cases.

The Massachusetts legislature followed suit by removing its discriminatory bar to out-of-state same-sex couples, revoking its law from 1913 that prevented them from marrying in the state.

And New York couples got a break when an intermediate court ruled that marriages of same-sex couples conducted outside the state must be recognized in New York.

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)