It found that the state's policy did not serve such an "overriding public interest", rejecting the argument that same-sex marriages would do harm by weakening the link between marriage and child rearing and finding no administrative or pragmatic difficulty with extending the rights of marriage to same-sex couples. The court also noted the state's endorsement of parenting by gays and lesbians in a series of actions, including 1996 legislation promoting same-sex adoption. It also dismissed the argument that legal recognition of same-sex marriage would not conform to the practices of other states, pointing out that Vermont already allowed for certain marriage contracts not recognized by other states, including first-cousin marriages, and that such concerns had not prevented the passage of similarly distinctive laws allowing same-sex couples to adopt. The court dismissed the remaining arguments, such as those concerning the "stability" of same-sex couples, as too nebulous or speculative to justify a policy with respect to all same-sex couples and equally applicable to some male-female partnerships.