Connecticut DP registry bill officially dead

Time has run out on legislation to allow gay and lesbian partners to register their relationships with the state of Connecticut. "It's not going to happen now," state representative Michael Lawlor (D-East Haven), house chairman of the legislature's judiciary committee, said Thursday. "It appears we ran out of time," added state senator Andrew J. McDonald, a Stamford Democrat and the committee's other cochairman. McDonald worked during the past several days to gather a coalition to pass an amendment that would have allowed gay and lesbian partners to register their relationships with the secretary of state, which would have provided same-sex couples many of the legal rights now afforded to married couples. McDonald said senate leadership had agreed to allow him to insert the measure in another bill in the form of an amendment. But the legislative session ended Wednesday, and house leaders did not take it up.