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Vermont legalizes gay marriage
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Gay marriage comes to Vermont
Vermont has become the fourth state to legalize gay marriage. The state legislature voted on Tuesday to override Governor Jim Douglas' veto of a marriage bill, thereby paving the way for gay marriages to begin taking place in the Green Mountain State on September 1, 2009.
Vermont joins Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa as the only states to currently allow gay marriage. The interesting thing to note about the situation in Vermont though is the way the legislation was enacted. The other states to allow gay marriage were forced to do so after court cases found the denial of equal marriage rights to gay couples to be unconstitutional. In Vermont, however, it was the state legislators who initiated the action.
This distinction is important because anti-gay marriage advocates have often railed against the courts and "activist judges" who recognized marriage inequality as unconstitutional. In fact, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has recently dug up that same old speech to condemn last week's court verdict in Iowa. In Vermont's case though, the legislators simply acted upon their consciences and set out to offer equal protection under the law for all Vermont citizens. The vote to override the Governor's veto was 23-5 in the Senate and 100-49 in the House.
The exact impact of the new legislation in Vermont will be minimal. The state was the first in the union to enact civil union legislation back in 2000 and there will be no new benefits granted to same-sex couples under the marriage legislation that weren't already granted under civil unions. But the vote for gay marriage was largely symbolic as it abolished the problematic "separate but equal" perception of civil unions.
One other point of interest in the Vermont legislation is that it guarantees churches will not be forced to perform gay marriages if they do not believe in them. Fair enough. The whole point of advocating for gay marriage is to allow same-sex couples to enjoy the rights and protections of civil marriage. Leave the churches to heaven.
It looks like there will be more news forthcoming on gay marriage across the country. Both Maine and New Hampshire are currently contemplating marriage bills. Hawaii is also looking into new civil union legislation.
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