The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled today that same-sex couples have the right to marry, reversing a lower court ruling that civil unions had offered the same rights and benefits as marriage, the Associated Press reports.

The court ruled 4-3 that gay and lesbian couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry under the state constitution.

Connecticut joins California and Massachusetts as the only states that allow same-sex marriage. High courts in New York, New Jersey and Washington have ruled that there is no right to same-sex marriage under their constitutions.

In his majority opinion, Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote that the court found that the "segregation of heterosexual and homosexual couples into separate institutions constitutes a cognizable harm," in light of "the history of pernicious discrimination faced by gay men and lesbians, and because the institution of marriage carries with it a status and significance that the newly created classification of civil unions does not embody." ...

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