I had some real hope of a continuing tide of marriage equality in New England, with the announcement that Vermont Senate Majority Leader John Campbell planned to introduce a bill into Vermont's state legislature to step the state up from civil unions to full marriage equality (for which he received a death threat - isn't that lovely?).
Vermont is a pretty live-and-let-live place, and I have read articles that state that polls have shown Vermonters to be majority supporters of full marriage equality.
Enter Republican Governor Jim Douglas.
Now, Republicans controlled Vermont's legislative body at the time that Vermont led the charge to civil unions for gay people in 2000. They passed legislation that improved civil rights for gay people. In my mind, "New England Republican" doesn't mean "anti-gay". "New England Republican," to me, indicates someone who's quite moderate, and is likely to be more socially progressive than your average Southern Democrat (unless that Democrat's from certain little bitty islands of blue in the South, like, say, Austin).
So when they said that this bill would be introduced, I thought, Okay, maybe Gov. Douglas will go for it.
Or not. Governor Douglas thinks that civil unions are "sufficient" for gay people, in spite of the recent Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection hearings before which people detailed how hospitals, insurance companies, and other business and institutions don't treat civil unions as precisely equal to marriage and still, then, discriminate against gay people.
Governor Douglas, I'd like to know how you missed the recent decision by the Supreme Court that noted the same issues seen by your own state's commission. Did you somehow also miss what's going on New Jersey, where the Supreme Court ordered the legislature to deliver equality for gay people, but didn't make them use the term "marriage"? Gay people in New Jersey have learned the hard way that seperate but equal...isn't.
If civil unions are "sufficient", Governor Douglas, how about you and Dorothy go trade your marriage in for a civil union, and see how that works for a decade? We'll wait for your report.