Is gay marriage legal? Is it protected by the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
As of April 2009, gay marriage was legal in four states—Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Iowa. It was also briefly legal in California until voters passed an initiative in 2008 limiting marriage to heterosexual couples. In Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Iowa same-sex couples were given the right to marry by state supreme courts that based their decision on equal protection clauses in their state constitutions. There is no national right to marry for same-sex couples. The United States Supreme Court has not held that this is a right protected by the equal protection clause of the federal Constitution.
