The Death Throes of Civil Unions

The states in the left column were carried by Barack Obama. The states in the right column were carried by Mitt Romney. Dark Blue indicates marriage equality. Nevada is green because as of this moment, it only has civil unions.  The light blue and red states have no legal recognition of gay relationships.

Another exciting day for marriage equality, with two major developments.  To keep up with these changes I have added a new wrinkle to the above table.  The states with yellow font are states where gay marriage is still not permitted but that are in circuits which have ruled to strike down state bans on gay marriage.  (Colorado became the first to do so earlier today.) Most likely these states will begin to flip in the coming days and two weeks from now, the chart will be mostly blue.

The most western states might take a little longer.  Today that the Ninth Circuit upheld two trial court rulings against state bans of gay marriage.  But that means these rulings are not directly affected by the Supreme Court's surprising decision to  not hear appeals from other circuits.  Alaska, Montana and Arizona can probably hold off the inevitable for a little while, although I'm sure there will be an expedited movement to change that fact in all of those states.

Idaho and Nevada also had an option to delay the inevitable.  Today's ruling came from a three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit.  Those states could have requested a hearing in front of the entire Ninth Circuit but it is a virtual certainty that the result would be the same.  The early indications are that they will not waste their taxpayers money on that. So as soon as tomorrow, I hope to update my chart again.

But today is truly historic.  We now have 25 states with marriage equality and 25 without.  Throw in DC and we can say that a majority of jurisdictions in this country have full marriage equality, barely ten years after Massachusetts became the first.


Another point of history is that today might be the very last day that this country has "civil unions" as the closest facsimile of marriage available to gay people.  Colorado went past that point today and Nevada is expect to do the same tomorrow.  Soon, my map will be just blue or red.  And it's trending blue, in a hurry.

UPDATE (and it's awesome):  The Opinion from the Ninth circuit in the Idaho case includes the following sentence, which ends with a footnote:

Same-sex marriage, Governor Otter asserts, is part of a shift towards a consent-based, personal relationship model of marriage, which is more adult-centric and less child-centric.(12)

Footnote (#12) Reads:

He also states, in conclusory fashion, that allowing same-sex marriage will lead opposite-sex couples to abuse alcohol and drugs, engage in extramarital affairs, take on demanding work schedules, and participate in time-consuming hobbies. We seriously doubt that allowing committed same-sex couples to settle down in legally recognized marriages will drive opposite-sex couples to sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.

Latta v. Otter D.C. No 1:13-cv-00482-CWD