Topic: Gay marriage
Quote: Vermont legalizes gay marriage -- chicagotribune.com\nchicagotribune.com\nVermont legalizes gay marriage\nThe Associated Press\n6:57 PM CDT, April 7, 2009\nMONTPELIER, Vt. -- The marriage proposal came not over a candlelit dinner or on a scenic mountaintop; instead the couple were surrounded by a throng of gay rights supporters outside the Vermont House chamber.\n"We haven\'t decided who\'s going to propose to who yet," former lawmaker Robert Dostis said as he stood next to his longtime partner, Chuck Kletecka. "But we\'ve been together 25 years in September, and I think September 14th would be a nice wedding day."\n"Sounds good to me," Kletecka replied. "I accept."\nThe exchange came just after the Vermont House narrowly achieved the two-thirds majority necessary to overcome Republican Gov. Jim Douglas\' veto of a gay marriage bill.\nVermont was the first state to give gay and lesbian couples legal recognition with its civil unions law in 2000. It jumped to the lead again Tuesday: After courts in three other states had legalized gay marriage, Vermont became the first to have its Legislature do so on its own.\nBills to allow same-sex marriage are currently before lawmakers in New Hampshire, Maine, New York and New Jersey. The three other states that allow same-sex marriage -- Connecticut, Massachusetts and Iowa -- moved to do so first through the courts, not their legislatures.\n"For a popularly elected legislature to make this decision is a much more democratic process" because lawmakers have to answer to the voters every other November, said Eric Davis, a retired Middlebury College political science professor.\nCourts typically deal with arcane points of constitutional law. While legislatures debate some of the same principles, the process may become much more personal. In Vermont, some of the most gripping debate came when gay lawmakers took to the House floor last Thursday and told their own love stories.\nGetting gay marriage approved in a political, rather than purely legal, forum is a big step, said Boston University law professor Linda McLain, an expert on family law and policy.\n"What may give courage to other legislatures is that this legislature managed to do it," she said.\nShe added that using the civil rights language of equality -- the measure in Vermont was dubbed the marriage equality bill -- could help make gay marriage more acceptable elsewhere.\nOpponents said they, too, believe activists will be emboldened in other states and could attack the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman and provides that states need not recognize the marriage of a same-sex couple from another state. The Vermont action comes just days after the Iowa Supreme court ruled that not permitting gay marriage there was unconstitutional.\n"To the millions of Americans who care about marriage, we say, \'Get ready. President Obama and Democrats will use Vermont as an excuse to overturn the bipartisan federal Defense of Marriage Act,\'" said Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, which waged a radio campaign against the measure. "The next step is to ask the Supreme Court to impose gay marriage on all 50 states."\nTo date, the same-sex marriage movement\'s main gains have been in New England, which some attribute to Yankee liberalism and the gradual acceptance of gay relationships after Vermont\'s groundbreaking civil unions law took effect in 2000.\nDouglas had announced his intent to veto the gay marriage bill two weeks ago, saying he believed marriage should be limited to a man and a woman and calling the issue a distraction from more important economic and budgetary issues.\nIn Tuesday\'s vote, a yes was needed from two-thirds of those present to override the governor\'s veto. The goal was easily achieved in the Senate, which voted 23-5, but in the House the vote was much closer, 100-49.\nThe speaker\'s announcement of the results to a packed Statehouse chamber set off whistles and cheers among supporters whose hopes had been temporarily dashed when the governor announced he would veto the measure if it passed the Legislature.\nAmong the celebrants were Kletecka and Dostis, who recalled efforts to expand gay rights dating to an anti-discrimination law passed in 1992.\n"It\'s been almost 20 years to get to this point," Dostis said. "I think finally, most people in Vermont understand that we\'re a couple like any other couple. We\'re as good and as bad as any other group of people."\nCraig Bensen, a gay marriage opponent who had lobbied unsuccessfully for a nonbinding referendum on the question, said his side was outspent by supporters by 20-1.\n"The other side had a highly funded, extremely well-oiled machine with all the political leadership except the governor pushing to make this happen," he said. "The fact that it came down to this tight a vote is really astounding."\nThe measure had only 95 yes votes when it passed the House on Friday. But some changed their votes Tuesday.\nRep. Jeff Young, D- St. Albans, who voted no twice because he\'s philosophically opposed to gay marriage, joined most other Democrats in voting to override Douglas\' veto.\n"I think if I wanted to continue my career here and have any chance of being effective, I had to vote with my caucus," he said. "You have some pet projects, you think you can help your district back home with things that need to happen. I want to get a railroading bill through. I wouldn\'t even have had a chance to testify, let alone get it through. Now, people will listen to me. It\'s the way the political game is played."\nCopyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Response: Great news!
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