Domestic Partnership Rally
Copley Square, Boston
September 10, 1996

In 1996, when Circuit Judge Kevin Chang ruled against the State of Hawaii in Baehr v. Miike, the battle for domestic partnership began to take center stage. Threatened that a state like Hawaii would legalize domestic partnerships, conservatives filed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the US Congress. DOMA, signed by Clinton in 1996, stated that the federal government would not recognize legal, same-gender marriages from any state, and allowed individual states to refuse to honor legal same-gender marriages from other states. Once federal DOMA passed, similar bills were filed in most state legislatures, and the battle has raged on since. Vermont is currently the only state that recognizes same-gender civil unions and assures state benefits.

"The legal and financial dilemmas that gays and lesbians are left in because of this inequality are enormous."