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Loading ...Vt. Gov. Opposes Gay Marriage Bill
11.21.2008 11:30am EST
(Montpelier, Vermont) Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas says he will oppose legislation allowing same-sex marriages - a move likely to scuttle the bill expected to be introduced in January.
Vermont Senate Majority Leader John Campbell said earlier this week he would file the bill - to amend the state’s civil union law to provide for full marriage - in the new session of the legislature.But Campbell said the measure’s success with fellow lawmakers would depend on the governor’s support.
Douglas said Thursday that civil unions are adequate and that the legislature should be focusing on the economy.
“I think the current civil union law is sufficient,” Douglas said. “It accords equality of rights to Vermonters in terms of their relationships and I think we should leave the law as it is.”
Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force chair Beth Robinson called the governor’s position unfortunate and said it implies he believes lawmakers can only deal with one issue at a time.
“The Legislature can absolutely do more than one thing at once,” Robinson told The Associated Press.
“The notion that working on civil rights takes away from these other issues really is a false one.”
Vermont was the first state in the country to legalize civil unions in 2000. Last year, an 11-member commission was set up by the leaders of the Vermont House and Senate, both Democrats, to look into Vermont’s civil unions law to see if it is providing equality for gay and lesbian couples.
It submitted its report to the legislature in April, but made no recommendations on revising the law to allow for same-sex marriage.
The Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection detailed months of hearings it held throughout the state, where same-sex couples complained they were still discriminated against because employers, hospitals and insurance companies do not see their relationships as the equivalent of marriage.
The commission was chaired by former state Rep. Tom Little (R). Little was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee when it passed the law legalizing civil unions in 2000.
Little said the commission purposely decided not to include recommendations in the report. “That’s a decision for Vermont’s elected officials,” Little said at the time.
A public opinion survey earlier this year found that the majority of people in the state believe gay and lesbian couples should have the right to marry.
Earlier this week, the Boston-based group that won equal marriage rights in Massachusetts and Connecticut announced an ambitious plan to fight for equal marriage throughout New England and predicted success in the four additional states by 2012.
Meanwhile, police are investigating a death threat against Campbell over his gay marriage bill.
The threat was made by an anonymous woman angry over the proposed bill who telephoned Campbell. Campbell said she threatened to blow up his home.
Campbell said the threat was not just against him but also his family.
Best to wait for a friendlier and Democrat governor for Vermont who wants to support full marriage equality in that state.
Time needed to pass before the legislature would find the stomach for this have undergone a major readjustment of attitude in the state just over civil unions which passed in 2000. That process alone made a lot of people in Vermont mad. I suppose tolerate the gays so long as they don’t ask for anything approaching marriage equality.
Vermont may be more ready for marriage equality in 2012 than in 2008. Give it a few more years.
Why, when legislatures take up marriage to ban same-sex marriage, do we say that the legislature should be dealing with more important things? However, when the Vermont governor says that the legislature has more important things to do than legalize same-sex marriage, he is assailed by the chair of the Freedom to Marry task force for implying that the legislature can do only one thing at a time?
Before we call others hypocrites, we’d better get consistent ourselves.
This is the problem for the past 2 decades - SCREW WAITING!!!! We’ve been patient enough and where has it gotten us? 30+ states now have anti-gay legistlation. If we keep waiting for perfectly positioned elected officials we will NEVER have equality. WE NEED TO FIGHT! WE NEED TO BE HEARD!!!! WE NEED TO ACT UP once again and DEMAND equality. It makes me soooo angry that once again we here voices in the gay community saying…lets just be patient…lets just wait….we owe it to ourselves, our kids, our loved ones and even those on the wrong side of history to stand up and fight. Had the black or women or any other group that has had to fight for equality just “waited” it wouldn’t have ever happened. So LETS NOT continue to sit patiently in the back of the bus…its time to move forward.
Legislators can certainly walk and chew gum when it comes to giving themselves perks and bellying up to the public trough to feed!
Enough is enough!
So the Governor thinks civil union law is sufficient? Really Governor? How would he like it if we sought a proposition type 8 on the state election to ban heterosexual marriage rights at the federal level? I wonder how he’d feel about some of his own rights taken away? The anti same sex marriage haters need to walk in our shoes for at least a year to get first hand experience of what discrimination is really like.
Jim Douglas is a Republican who was just reelected in VT for another 4 year term as governor.
Should it really surprise anyone that someone from the Republican Party opposed equality for gays and lesbians?
The liberal crowd was spilt during the VT governor election in 2008. The Independent got 25% and the Democrat got 20%. So, the evil Republican spilt the progressive forces and got about 45% and won because the other two split the fair minded folks.
This why we should have run-off elections, if a candidate fails to get 50% of the vote.
In his “I Have A Dream” speech, Dr. King said
“We must resist the dangerous narcotic of incrementalism … we must do things in a big way.”
“King — like his predecessor Mohandas Gandhi, his contemporary Nelson Mandela and his successor Vaclav Havel — was a ‘magnificent disrupter of the status quo,’ and so must be honored not only with words but with action.”
We must take those words to heart and ACT, like Gandhi’s march to the sea to make salt, REGARDLESS of personal cost or personal sacrifice.
How many of you mortgaged your HOUSES to support NO ON HATE? The other side did. How many of you (who COULD) gave $50K or more?
How many of you supported the “NO” campaigns in Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas as well?
It’s time we got SERIOUS about our civil rights, and that translates into BIG BUCKS WELL-SPENT, not fancy offices and black-tie award dinners for our friends.
They have their place in peacetime.
THIS IS WAR! Worry about building bridges when the other side stops burning them.
Raymond H. Burgoon-Clark
one of the 2nd class citizens
created by the
HATEFUL RELIGIOUS BIGOTS!
Yes, the campaign was limp and ill-run, but it was lost with the AMOUNT of TV ads and the fact that talking head ads on OUR side couldn’t counter their slick, professionally-produced LIES.
Hey… “lead is cheaper than a lawyer” isnt that what the Panthers promoted in the 60’s
Any reason this story fails to mention that Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas is a REPUBLICAN? Isn’t that relevant?
Contact Vermont’s Governor urging him to pass the upcoming marriage equality bill.
HEY,BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN VERMONT-YOUR GOVERNOR JUST TOLD YOU ALL TO “GO F*CK YOURSELVES” ! SO,,, WHAT CHA GONNA DO BOUT THAT ?? MAKE SOME NOISE??
There’s a growing grumble, thank goodness, that that “Let them eat cake” BS is losing traction. We’re sick and tired of sitting in kitchen, sucking up smoke fumes, while we’re STILL being taxed at a higher rate!
Enough with that pink triangle called “civil unions”!
Hey guys n gals just a thought here what are we gonna do if FINALLY we have a president that supports civil unions with FULL federal and state rights are we going to look at him and go no thank you we wont settle for anything but marriage, this after fighting for decades to be recognized by our government dont forget it would also stop the straights from leading our lives by getting to vote on who i love and marry i say dont fuck it up use it as a stepping stone to get what we want, marriage
What the HELL makes someone think a Democrat would somehow be friendlier if in office? Has this person seen the damage Obama has done?
People like Morgan who want us to hurry up and wait, only to be disapointed by yet another homophobic Democrat need to be treated like the uncle toms, traitors and enemies within that they are. Morgan, if you wanna wait, go and hold your f*cking breath until you’re dead but do the rest of us a favor, you and your kind need to stay the hell out of the way of progress. All you do is hold it back.
“Let us not take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism” MLK
I say any f*cking gay “leaders” who tell us to wait and the likes of Morgan who get in our way, we should treat them as the enemies of equality that they are.
We will never get equality most less respect if we keep allowing a pass to both our “friends” and “allies” as well as our enemies. Civil unions are garbage, the past 9 years have proven this fact over and over and over again. We will NEVER see marriage equality unless we fight NOW!!! If we fight now, we might have to wait, but we’ll never have marriage equality if we take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism as proposed by the scummy likes of Morgan and other Uncle Tom “leaders” in the gay community. We need to fight NOW, not later.