Status of Same-Sex Relationships Nationwide

As of February 16, 2010

States with Marriage Equality (6)

States that Give the Benefits And Responsibilities of Marriage but with a Label of Inferiority Such as Civil Union or Domestic Partnership (6)

States that Give Some or Many Protections with Statewide Non-Marriage Laws Such As Domestic Partnership, Reciprocal Beneficiary or Other Laws (4)

  • Colorado - Designated Beneficiary Agreements Law
  • Hawaii - Reciprocal Beneficiaries Law
  • Maine - Limited Domestic Partnership Law 
  • Wisconsin - Limited Domestic Partnership Law

State(s) and Other Jurisdictions that Respect Out-of-State-Marriages of Same-Sex Couples (6)

  • California (by statute, pre-November 5, 2008 marriages honored as marriages and later out-of-state marriages treated as registered domestic partnerships)
  • District of Columbia
  • New Jersey (out-of-state marriages treated as civil unions)
  • New Mexico (not confirmed by court or official policy)
  • New York
  • Rhode Island (likely for some purposes but not divorce)

States that Give Limited Domestic Partnership Benefits to State Employees (not including states listed in prior categories that provide broader protections) (6)

  • Alaska
  • Arizona (to be eliminated by state budget vote as of October 1, 2010)
  • Illinois
  • Montana
  • Rhode Island
  • New Mexico

Additional resource:

Examples of States that Provide Benefits to Same-Sex Partners of State Employees

States with Constitutional Amendments Empowering Legislature to Ban Marriage (1)

Additional resource:

Text of State Constitutional Amendments Targeting Same-Sex Relationships

States with Constitutional Amendments Banning Marriage (29)

  • Alabama
  • Alaska
  • Arizona
  • Arkansas
  • California
  • Colorado
  • Florida
  • Georgia
  • Idaho
  • Kansas
  • Kentucky
  • Louisiana
  • Michigan
  • Mississippi
  • Missouri
  • Montana
  • Nebraska
  • Nevada
  • North Dakota
  • Ohio
  • Oklahoma
  • Oregon
  • South Carolina
  • South Dakota
  • Tennessee
  • Texas
  • Utah
  • Virginia

Additional resource: Read the laws themselves.

Text of State Constitutional Amendments Targeting Same-Sex Relationships

States that Bar Marriage By Statute or Otherwise (45)

In addition to the state constitutional amendments, the District of Columbia and all states except Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont have statutes or interpret their statutes to bar same-sex couples from marrying. This reflects that same-sex couples were not able to marry anywhere in the United States until May 2004, when the Massachusetts high court ruling went into effect.

Starting in 1995, after the Hawaii Supreme Court's 1993 decision that the state's different-sex-only marriage restriction raised a serious constitutional question, many state legislatures passed statues explicitly refusing to respect marriages same-sex couples might celebrate in Hawaii or elsewhere. In 1996, the United States Congress seemed to validate this trend by passing the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act," which purported to allow states to ignore other states' decisions to allow same-sex couples to marry. Then many states reinforced their antigay marriage restrictions by amending their constitutions to reiterate the same or broader denial of legal recognition to same-sex couples, which only emphasized the discrimination that already existed in those states.

Likewise, in some states like New York that had not passed new discriminatory statutes to reinforce old ones, the states' courts nonetheless issued opinions reading the old laws as excluding same-sex couples. In other states like New Mexico, the Attorney General interpreted the old state laws as barring clerks from giving marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The sum of these developments is that five states (Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont) presently allow same-sex couples to marry. Six more jurisdictions (California, the District of Columbia, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington State) offer broad state-law protection through a non-marriage status such as civil union or registered domestic partnership. Five more states (Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland and Wisconsin) offer more limited protections through a non-marriage status. Others (including at least California, the District of Columbia, New Jersey and New York) respect marriages and/or non-marriage statuses that same-sex couples have entered into in other states. According to data compiled by the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School, as of 2009, roughly one-third of the same-sex couples in the United States resided in a jurisdiction offering them at least some form of state-level legal protection.