Separate is not equal

UK Gay News points to a brief but positive editorial in the New York Times on the Connecticut Supreme Court’s decision yesterday to legalize full marriage equality.

From the New York Times:

Connecticut’s Supreme Court was considering a ruling by a lower court that found that there was no denial of equal protection in excluding gay people from the institution of marriage. The lower court cited supposedly comparable protections and benefits afforded by the state’s civil-unions law. The Supreme Court’s decision correctly rejects that standard, which is the same as the excuse of separate but equal once used to rationalize racial segregation.

Justice Richard Palmer wrote in the majority opinion that segregating heterosexual and homosexual couples into different institutions constitutes a “cognizable harm” in light of “the history of pernicious discrimination faced by gay men and lesbians, and because the institution of marriage carries with it a status and significance that the newly created classification of civil unions does not embody.”

Because of that history of discrimination, the decision properly treats sexual orientation as a “suspect classification” entitled to the sort of heightened legal scrutiny applied to distinctions based on race or sex.