The wedding ring In a landmark ruling, Vermont legalized same-sex marriage. The question now is what's next?

Author: Kaity Potak

As the celebrations of GAYpril get under way, last week's decision by the Vermont state legislature to overturn Governor Jim Douglas' '72 veto against the proposed marriage equality bill could not have come at a more appropriate time.

With a bold swiftness that inspired heated debate across the state, Douglas vetoed the bill that proposed replacing civil unions with civil marriages for Vermont's same-sex couples. Less than 24 hours after his veto, though, Douglas' opinion was overridden by both the Senate's overwhelming majority of 23-5 and then immediately thereafter by the House with an equally impressive vote of 100-49.

As Vermont Democratic Chairwoman Judy Bevans said in a press release last week, "Our country can once again look to Vermont's citizen-legislature as leaders. We provide the light of hope to young gays and lesbians in other states who have no civil rights at all. By its actions today, Vermont declares that equality is, still, the fundamental basis for democracy."

Douglas has, in the past, been very clear about where he stands on the issue of marriage equality in Vermont.

"I believe our civil-union law serves Vermont well and I would support congressional action to extend those benefits at the federal level to states that recognize same-sex unions," said Douglas earlier in the month in a formal statement regarding the bill.

A representative from the Douglas administration was unavailable for comment.

Vermont, which was the first state in the union to allow civil unions regardless of sexual orientation, is now the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage, joining Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa. Vermont is the only one to do so through legislative action instead of judicial ruling.

Now that the law has been enacted, Beth Robinson, board chairwoman of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, said its focus will be to provide support to Vermonters and to reach out to those who still do not support same-sex marriage.

"We're the first state in this country that has enacted a marriage bill through our representatives," Robinson said. "That puts us ahead of the pack, and I think this is absolutely a first for Vermont."

Last week's decision was also an enormous personal victory for Vermont's gay population. In a treatise entitled "Why I don't want a Civil Union," Professor of Russian at the College Kevin Moss ardently argued that granting only civil unions was comparable to a public admission that gay people are second-class citizens.

"Gay couples don't want to change the definition of marriage," he wrote. "We don't want gay marriage. We don't want same-sex marriage or same-gender marriage. We don't want a separate category just for us: as the courts have recognized, that can only be discriminatory. We just want equality. Marriage."

But doubt still exists about how to reconcile those values of marriage and equality, and the surrounding controversy, it seems, has implications that extend far beyond the realm of gay rights into a much more general investigation of social patterns.

As Laurie Essig, assistant professor of Sociology and Women's and Gender Studies, pointed out, there remains something strange about the fact that more than 1,000 state-granted rights and privileges of American citizens are determined by a social construct that many find to be increasingly insignificant.

"Why can't we all have the same rights and privileges regardless of marital status? Why can't we define our families as we wish?" said Essig.

Chelsea Guster '11 and Christine Bachman '09, co-presidents of the Middlebury Open Queer Alliance, support such critical dialogue.

"The question is not necessarily why don't queer couples receive the same treatment that heterosexual couples do, but why aren't all of these rights and benefits bestowed upon people in general? I have absolutely nothing against two people that want to be together, but why are these rights even associated with marriage to begin with?" Guster said.

Essig elaborated futher on the social trappings linked to marriage in our society.

"Marriage is not randomly distributed throughout the population," Essig said. "It has a particular racial and class formation. It has become not just a set of rites, but a set of 'rights' that are about property, status, race and sexual purity. While I celebrate with gay marriage advocates for obtaining their rights, I would also like to focus on healthcare for all. On families defined by love, not the state; and a government that does not create a sexual elite of married couples to have more rights and privileges that the majority of Americans who are unmarried do not enjoy."

To be sure, many other disfranchised groups may also struggle with the inequalities associated with being gay. Today, 96 percent of white women in the U.S. will marry at some point in their lives, while less than 45 percent of black women will. Seventy percent of black children today are born outside of marriage. In fact, only 23 percent of Americans are actually part of nuclear families, which includes step families.

"Why shouldn't all of these rights be given to all of the people possible?" Bachman said. "This is addressing gays and lesbians in couples, but for many people this isn't the only issue. What about single people? What about three people who love each other? They need support too. There are many questions and communities that are not being addressed in the same-sex marriage struggle."

As for Douglas' place in such a struggle? Whisperings of positioning himself within the GOP and looking out for the future of his political career erupted last Monday after his veto. While some expected his vote, many of his constituents still found it dismaying.

"I think it is likely that he is looking out for his future, voting along party lines," Bachman said of Douglas' decision.

Disappointed after last week's proceedings, Robinson accepted that the Task Force may not be able to rely on the governor for support in the future the way they had previously hoped.

"The fact is," said Robinson, "the governor had the opportunity to be part of something special and important. He passed it up and I just feel bad for him."

Instead, the Task Force's efforts are focusing on reaching out to Vermonters and joining the already active dialogue to which people such as Essig have contributed.

"I hope that we can now begin to be neither for or against gay marriage," said Essig," but rather for the rights of all residents of the U.S."