Civil Union

A civil union is a legal status that grants a couple many of the rights and responsibilities of marriage, such as hospital visitation, inheritance, and certain tax and benefit protections, without being called marriage. Several U.S. states and countries adopted civil unions in the 2000s as a compromise that recognized same-sex relationships while stopping short of marriage. The distinction drew criticism for creating a separate and lesser category. In the United States, the legal picture changed on June 26, 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry in all fifty states. Civil unions became largely unnecessary as a result, though some jurisdictions still offer them.