legal differences between a marriage and a civil union?
Each of the 50 states defines who can enter into a “marriage” and the attending legal consequences of entering into that relationship. Currently, all 50 states limit marriage to heterosexual couples. Some states allow same-sex couples to enter into relationships that carry with them varying legal consequences. California and Hawaii, for example, have “domestic partnership” and “reciprocal beneficiary” laws, respectively. Right now, only Vermont allows same-sex couples to enter into “civil unions.” To a certain extent, the difference between domestic partnerships and civil unions is a matter of semantics—in theory, California and Vermont could provide same-sex couples the same legal rights under different names.
