Kerrigan v. Commissioner of Public Health

The majority concludes that the marriage laws,1 which define marriage as the union of one man and one woman,2 classify on the basis of sexual orientation, that this classification is subject to intermediate scrutiny under article first, §§ 1 and 20, of the Connecticut constitution, as amended by articles five and twenty-one of the amendments,3 and that, under this heightened level of review, the state has failed to provide sufficient justification for limiting marriage to one man and one woman. The latter conclusion is based primarily on the majority’s unsupported assumptions that the essence…