Vermont legislature overrides governor's veto

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jeffg

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More great news!

Vermont Legalizes Gay Marriage With Veto Override

The Associated Press
Tuesday, April 7, 2009; 11:19 AM

MONTPELIER, Vt. -- Vermont has become the fourth state to legalize
gay marriage - and the first to do so with a legislature's vote.

The Legislature voted Tuesday to override Gov. Jim Douglas' veto of a
bill allowing gays and lesbians to marry. The vote was 23-5 to override
in the state Senate and 100-49 to override in the House. Under Vermont
law, two-thirds of each chamber had to vote for override.

The vote came nine years after Vermont adopted its first-in-the-nation
civil unions law.

 
Yay!

Kudos to Vermont.

I think it's important that the successful initiatives are coming from smaller states like Vermont and so-called "flyover" states like Iowa instead of New York and California. This means to me that Middle America is slowly waking up to the injustice in our midst.

I was especially impressed by the judicial reasoning in the Iowa case; the court ruled that while there were certainly citizens with religious objections out there, there were other religious people out there who were firmly in favour of the measure, and that the state was not supposed to be in the business of supporting the stance of one religious group over that of another.

Why, it was downright American. To say nothing of Iowa stubborn. :-)

Patience, my friends. It'll happen.
 
Patience, my ass

Sandy,
We need to strike now, while the iron's hot and we have the christianists on the run.

Those of them who can think must now realize that their only chance is for a negotiated peace. They agree to repeal DOMA, we get federal rights for state granted marriage. States reciprocate but each state can decide for itself if it wants to grant the license themselves. As long as they reciprocate, who cares?

This, we could all live with.

But if the christianists are dumb enough to fight it, well, I say now we have to fight!

What a great day this is!
 
Keven, by falling into the "culture war" rhetoric of people who're fighting social progress, progress that is unstoppable and irreversible, we play into their hands. E.g. here in California the 'Yes on 8' camp has taken a single comment from Gavin Newsom, "It's going to happen, whether you like it or not", and has used it to galvanize support against same-sex marriage. The idea that gay marriage is being shoved down people's throats against their will -- even though polls clearly show most Californians support equal rights for same-sex couples -- is one of their side's most effective emotional weapons.

I'm not saying there isn't a place for activism, and if it weren't for plaintiffs across America challenging these silly and utterly pointless DOMA laws, none of this progress would be happening. My only point is, we'll get much further with the majority of people by using honey instead of vinegar.

I've followed with great interest all state debates on this issue, and the one question I've never heard asked in any of these cases is, "What specific benefits do we as a society accrue by not recognizing same-sex marriages?"

It's a simple question that has no answer. There is no point in this civil gay bashing, except to enshrine gay bashing into our state constitutions and laws.
 
Jeff,

I understand you.It's just- living in Europe, it is awfully hard to follow the reasoning.
We settled these discussions a very long time ago.

There was an interesting link on The Dish about how areas which support gays a lot are doing better during this recession than those which don't. I'll see if I can't find it for you.
 

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