HARTFORD — Saying LGBTQ communities are an integral part of Connecticut’s population, Gov. Ned Lamont declared June LGBTQ Pride month in the state.
Events in June commemorate the uprising at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 when a group of LGBTQ people stood their ground in the face of police harassment. It is considered one of the benchmark event in LGBT history.
Lamont said, “The State of Connecticut celebrates the diversity of its people and their right to live their lives out loud, free of discrimination, fear, and prejudice.”
The declaration went on to say, “Connecticut is proud to have led the nation in adopting laws supporting the LGBTQ community, including being the first state to enact a law through the legislature granting same-sex couples with the rights and responsibilities of marriage.”
Connecticut was one of the first states to pass civil rights protections for gays and lesbians in 1991. Gender identity and expression was added in 2011. The legislature passed a civil unions bill that allowed same-sex couples legal partnerships in 2005 and Gov. Jodi Rell signed it into law. A decision in a case three years later said same-sex couples had a constitutional right to marry and determined that the state’s civil union statute violated the equal protection clause of the state Constitution. Connecticut became the third state in the country to allow same sex marriage.
