After almost three hours of debate, the Connecticut state House of Representatives on June 2 approved a bill to allow gays and lesbians and other unmarried couples to co-adopt their partners' biological children, but the state Senate is unlikely to take it up before the legislative session ends on June 9. The problem is the last-minute addition in the House of an amendment to not only deny legal recognition to same-gender marriages, but to actually impose fines on anyone who attempts to perform them in Connecticut. Although like all the other states Connecticut does not currently recognize same-gender marriages, the language of its marriage law is now gender-neutral, referring to "persons."

Not only is the amendment heartily opposed by most of the gay and lesbian constituency who support second-parent adoptions, but Senate President Pro Tem Kevin Sullivan (D-West Hartford) is unwilling to devote the precious final hours of the session to what would inevitably become an extended debate on same-gender marriages. But openly gay state Representative Art Feltman (D-Hartford), a co-sponsor of the co-adoption bill, still has some hope that discussion with state Senators could salvage the original proposal.

Supporters of the anti-marriage amendment said that recognition of unmarried couples for purposes of step-parent adoptions detracted from the unique value of the marital relationship, and felt that was important to preserve.

Gay and lesbian activists viewed the action much more cynically, as bringing in an unrelated issue to kill a bill directed towards the well-being of children. Evan Wolfson, director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund's Marriage Project and one of the attorneys representing gay and lesbian couples seeking marriage licenses in Hawai'i, told the "Hartford Courant" that, "This bill gives a morsel with one hand and takes away the entire meal with the other. If right-wing legislators want to have a debate on an anti-marriage measure, they should introduce it [early in the session] and hold [public] hearings. Don't use it as a poison pill."

Twenty states currently allow gay and lesbian second-parent adoptions. Some thirty states have specifically denied legal recognition to same-gender marriages.