As you know, gay marriage became legal in Vermont on September 1, and the Phelps Phamily, always classy to a fault, decided to show up and scream about how bad it is to have gay thoughts even though I have never in my life met someone who seems to spend as much time thinking about the mechanics of gay sex as much as the Phelps clan.

Chi Chi La Rue hasn’t thought about sex that much over an entire career.

And, yes, the Phelps clan protests are bad and stupid and wrong and, God, aren’t you kind of bored with this sentence already?

Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church have done it: They’ve screamed so long that they’ve just become tiresome.

Tiresome and irrelevant. And that’s what’s good.

I read today’s Vermont papers to see how the locals reacted to the Phelpses in Montpelier, and it was like a mastodon had wandered into the neighborhood.

They were puzzled, and didn’t want to get too close.

They couldn’t quite believe such a thing still existed, and while they didn’t necessarily feel a need to kill it, they did seem to think it might be better contained in a zoo or a lab somewhere.

Another good thing about the Phelps family is that they are shrill and horrible enough that they are among the few who still really illustrate the hate that lies so quietly under the anti-LGBT movement. Even the goobers at NOM know not to put it right out there.

But not the Phelpses. They’re bigoted, loud, and proud. Which means we can take the kids to look at them in the zoo and explain how dangerous they are when they’re allowed to breed unchecked in the wild.

Speaking of kids, yes, we do have to feel sad that the Westboro Baptist Church is screwing up their own kids by teaching them that religion is about casting that first stone hard enough that the pain in your shoulder keeps you from noticing your own sins.

But what they’ve managed to show me about how terrific and accepting the next generation can be is something wonderful.

In addition to the hilarious raw numbers – five members from Westboro Baptist met by more than a hundred counterprotesters – there is the heartwarming story of the students at Montpelier High.

The Burlington Free Press reported that the students considered attacking the Phelps clan with Super Soakers, but in the end decided that it wasn’t quite right to shoot the mastodon.

But they also didn’t want it to step on anything with its big, clumsy feet.

So the students, led by senior Joe Carlomagno, instead organized a fundraising campaign and asked people to donate for every minute that the protestors stayed. They ended up raising more than $5,000 for GLAD.

Carlomagno’s comment to the Free Press was, “They’re here to provoke our anger and our reaction. I’m glad we showed some finesse.” That is one self-possessed 17-year-old.

So thank you, Phelps clan, for being loud and stupid and rude and for having no social sense whatsoever. Because you remind everyone that other, slicker groups are just mastodons in sheep’s clothing, and that all the carefully crafted “I love them, I just don’t agree with their lifestyle” rhetoric is being trumpeted past some big, old-fashioned tusks.

And thank you for being awful enough to inspire those high school students to be better people than you are, and to be innovative while doing it. That lesson will serve them well for the rest of their lives.

But mostly, thank you for being very nearly extinct.

Up until a few months ago, I passed a Ben & Jerry’s store every morning on my way to work. It was very, very difficult to pass it by – and I sometimes found myself walking to work with ice cream cone in hand.

So I was thrilled to hear today that Ben & Jerry have temporarily renamed a popular ice cream flavor Chubby Hubby to  ”Hubby Hubby” in order to celebrate equal marriage in Vermont. Gay couples are able to marry in the state as of today.

They say:

In partnership with Freedom to Marry we are gathered here to celebrate Vermont and all the other great states where loving couples of all kinds are free to marry legally. We have ceremoniously dubbed our iconic flavor, Chubby Hubby to Hubby Hubby in support, and to raise awareness of the importance of marriage equality. Check out our press release.

 If you live in Vermont, or visiting, you’re invited to celebrate the pride-filled occasion with an all naturally fabulous union of Peanut Butter Cookie Dough ice cream, fudge and pretzels. Enjoy our Hubby Hubby Sundae for the month of September in participating Vermont Scoop Shops!

Sadly, the flavor is only available in Vermont.  Anyone up for a road trip?

With Vermont’s new law allowing same-sex marriage only a minute old, they tied the knot in a midnight ceremony at a rustic lodge, becoming one of the first couples to legally wed under a law that took effect at midnight Monday.

Dressed in suits, saying their vows under a large wall-mounted moose head, the two Whitehall, N.Y., men promised their love, exchanged rings and held hands during a modest 17-minute ceremony. Moose Meadow Lodge co-owner Greg Trulson, who’s also a Justice of the Peace, presided.

“It feels wonderful,” said Slimback, 38, an out-of-work Teamster who is taking Sullivan’s last name as his own. “It’s a day I’ve been long waiting for, and a day I truly honestly thought would never come.”

Slimback said he and Sullivan, 41, have long wanted to cement their relationship with a wedding, but since they couldn’t legally marry in New York they chose to wed even before Vermont’s gay marriage era officially dawned.

Vermont is one of five states that now allow same-sex couples to marry. Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Iowa are the others.

Vermont, which invented civil unions in 2000 after a same-sex couple challenged the inequality of state marriage statutes, was a mecca for gay couples who to that point had no way to officially recognize their relationships.

Since then, other states have allowed gay marriage, as did Vermont, which in April became the first state to legalize gay marriage through a legislative decree and not a court case.

Some couples – including many who obtained civil unions in Vermont – plan to return to the state to get married. But most are in no rush. City and town officials say only a handful of licenses had been issued to same-sex couples in anticipation of Tuesday’s start.

“We’ve waited a long time to do this – basically, our whole lives,” Slimback said Monday. “We’ve been waiting for a chance to actually solidify it,” he said. He and Sullivan said they never wanted to obtain a civil union because they believe that’s a kind of second-class recognition.

The law takes effect Tuesday, but he’s still waiting. So far, he has only one wedding celebration planned at the 11-unit Grunberg Haus, in Duxbury. It’s for Sept. 8.

“I guess the word’s still getting around out there,” said Connor, who runs the inn with wife Linda.

Unlike the rush that followed Vermont’s adoption of civil unions in 2000, the state’s adoption of full marriage rights for same-sex couples hasn’t turned it into a gay marriage mecca. And it may not.

City and town clerks around Vermont have issued only a handful of licenses. The adoption of gay marriage in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Iowa has diluted what was once Vermont’s monopoly – and a tourism draw.

“It’s not like what it was when civil unions went into effect,” said Manchester Town Clerk Linda Spence, a Justice of the Peace who officiated at some. “Of course, we were the first state, so that made the draw much bigger.”

In Manchester, a southern Vermont town whose picturesque old buildings, mountain vistas and upscale shopping make it a wedding destination (there were 101 last year), no gay couples have plunked down the $45 fee for the marriage licenses, which are good for 60 days from the date of issue.

Ditto for Brattleboro and for Montpelier, the state capital.

“I haven’t given out any yet, but I’ve heard from three couples who are going to be coming in,” Spence said. “Two of the couples – one of them is from Australia – got civil unions from me and they’re coming back for a marriage. It makes me feel good.”

The wedding preparations have been slow elsewhere, too.

In Burlington, the state’s largest city, only three licenses have been issued for post-Sept. 1 weddings involving gay or lesbian couples. In Rutland, four licenses have been issued, said City Clerk Henry Heck.

“I know the ladies here have received phone calls inquiring, thinking it was a done deal now,” Heck said. “We tell them it doesn’t take effect until Sept. 1. There’s interest out there. I think more will apply shortly thereafter, but I’m not sure how big the turnout will be.”

It’s a sharp contrast to 2000.

After the civil unions law took effect July 1, 2000, there were 1,704 civil unions established in the next six months, including 405 in July alone. Out-of-state residents accounted for 78 percent of them – with most involving people from New York, Massachusetts and California, according to state vital records. Nearly 69 percent were between female partners.

The slow start to the same-sex marriage law may also be rooted in timing. When the Legislature adopted the law in April, it set Sept. 1 as the effective date, thereby missing out on the summer wedding season.

Too, the five-month gap between the adoption of gay marriage and its effective date have kept it out of the spotlight.

“My guess is that members of the gay community are assuming that on Sept. 1, they can come in to get the license so that they can have a fall marriage,” said Secretary of State Deborah L. Markowitz. “I expect that after Sept. 1, it’s going to pick up.”

Beth Robinson, a Middlebury attorney who spearheaded the pushes for civil unions and then gay marriage in Vermont, says there isn’t the “pent-up demand” for same-sex marriage that there was for civil unions. In the intervening years, people have obtained civil unions here or marriages in other states.

Still, there are plans being made.

One couple isn’t wasting any time. Two men from Whitehall, N.Y., plan a midnight wedding Monday at the Moose Meadow Lodge in Duxbury, standing in front of a great room fireplace. Lodge co-owner Greg Trulson – a Justice of the Peace – will perform the ceremony, pronouncing them married in the first minutes of Sept 1.

The 30-member Vermont Gay Tourism Association, meanwhile, plans a “Small State, Big Heart” marriage equality wedding reception and dance party Tuesday night at The Essex resort in Essex, offering hors d’oeuvres, wedding cake and DJ dancing for $34 per person.

Meanwhile, Vermont-based Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream is marking the occasion in typically sweet fashion. They’re renaming their “Chubby Hubby” flavor “Hubby Hubby” for the month.

Kyle Giard-Chase, 16, asked the Vermont Human Rights Commission on Thursday to endorse the effort. He said that before he came out last year as transgendered, he was a three-sport athlete and the co-captain of the field hockey team, a girls’ sport, at South Burlington High School.

At an away game, he said he was verbally harassed and threatened by the members of the host school’s football team for using the girls’ restroom.

“The harassment only stopped when I was reduced to tears and told them I was in fact a female,” said Kyle, now a senior.

But Kyle said it wasn’t the harassment that affected him the most.

“It was the fear and apprehension of possibly having to use the bathroom during the school day that caused me the most harm,” he said. “By eighth grade I had almost made a game out of waiting for the end of the day so I could use the bathroom at my own home.”

Gender-neutral bathrooms can be as simple as what are now considered handicapped accessible bathrooms that are in a single room, he said.

The commission expressed some sympathy toward the plight of young people whose struggles with gender identity make them uncomfortable using gender-specific bathrooms, but it didn’t take any action.

Joseph Benning, chairman of the commission’s board, told Kyle he should prepare to deal with resistance from school officials who wouldn’t have the resources to change school bathrooms.

“You’ve begun the process by opening up doors even to us, who never would have envisioned this being a problem at all,” Benning. “Once you start on that path, however, you are going to run into opposition. As you go down the road you need to be prepared for it.”

No opponents of the idea attended the meeting, although Benning said they would be welcomed at future meetings.

Kyle is working with the Burlington-based group Outright Vermont, a social service organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth.

“The hope is that this is the first statewide gender-neutral bathroom campaign in the country,” said Outright Executive Director Christopher Neff. “Vermont is a leader. This is another opportunity to again be the first in the nation and say we are going to make sure that all of our students, no matter who they are, are safe and protected.”

A Vermont Department of Education spokesman couldn’t find anyone to answer questions about the issue on Thursday.

Vermont was the first state in the country that allowed same sex couples to form civil unions and earlier this year the Legislature approved same-sex marriage. State law also includes the Gender Identity Nondiscrimination Act of 2007.

In a separate statement given to the board, Kyle said that he did not feel safe in gender-specific bathrooms. Throughout middle school he said he would “hold it” to avoid being harmed by others.

“This procedure of ‘holding it’ caused me to pay less attention in class, neglect my studies, and fear going to school in the morning,” he said.

He said South Burlington High School has a number of unisex bathrooms and his feelings of “fear and apprehension” dissolved.

Neff told the board the process was just beginning and they hoped the board would take a stand on the issue that young people need to feel comfortable when they are in school.

In a surprise announcement he attributed mainly to personal reasons, the 58-year-old Republican said he wouldn’t run for another two-year term next year but had no plans to seek other elected office.

“…As any farmer knows after many years working sunup to sundown, seven days a week, there comes a time to turn over the reins to fresh arms. For me, that time is approaching. After 36 years as a public servant, 28 of those years in statewide office, with what will be eight years as governor, and through 15 statewide elections, I will have held center stage long enough for anybody.’

Douglas, who’d said in recent months that he planned to run again, made the annoucnement midway through his fourth term in a room packed with longtime aides, supporters and some political opponents. He wasn’t specific in saying why he didn’t want to continue in the job, saying only he’d been in public service long enough.

“I know there will be some speculation as to what is next, so I want to lay a few questions to rest immediately: I am not running for president. (Wife) Dorothy has a divorce lawyer on speed dial if I ever utter that crazy idea,” he said.

Elected recently to chair the National Governors Association, he also has been an informal advisor to President Barack Obama on health care and other issues.

A fiscal conservative and social moderate who has bucked Vermont’s political tide for years, Douglas has endured an increasingly rocky relationship with the state’s Democrat-controlled legislature. In April, the Legislature approved gay marriage over his veto. The Legislature also overrode his veto of the state budget.

Three Democrats have already announced plans to run against Douglas in 2010.

On the Republican side, Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie is seen as the most obvious candidate. He left the door open to a potential run Thursday.

“The Governor’s announcement today changes the political landscape in Vermont,” said Dubie. “As Vermonters reflect on this new landscape, I will contemplate my options. Right now, I will focus on doing my job. I will discuss my plans when the time is right.”

A fixture in Vermont politics since 1972, when he was elected to the House of Representatives as a 21-year-old fresh out of Middlebury College, Douglas went on to serve as secretary of state and state treasurer before being elected governor in 2002.

It was an easy set up. Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman contacted thinkers and writers who have penned a lot of words on the ills of gay marriage and asked them to make predictions of what social problems will happen in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire now that those states have marriage rights.

You would think that given an opportunity to warn of the apocalypse would have these folk jump at the chance, but alas heavy hitters like Maggie Gallagher and Stanley Kurtz demurred. I’m surprised at Kurtz and will give him  a pass. He is the only marriage rights foe I can think of who does not come from the topic with anti-gay animus.

David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values and author of “The Future of Marriage,” nibbled at the bait, but declined to give any specific predictions.

“I disagree with those who say it will have no impact at all,” Blankenhorn said. “But beyond that, I don’t think you can say.”

Proclaim same sex marriage will destroy the country but you can’t tell me how. Riiiiiight.

Those in favor of marriage rights played along.

M. V. Lee Badgett, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and author of  “When Gay People Get Married: What Happens When Societies Legalize Same-Sex Marriage,” made this observation:  “In Europe, there’s no evidence that patterns have changed for marriage, divorce or non-marital births because of same-sex marriage or registered partnerships.”

I’m disappointed in the anti-gay marriage team. You would think after Chapman put down the gauntlet,  they would have swung for the fences.

And you wonder why we are winning the debate.

Post-script: this really shouldn’t be added but Gallagher did respond with some weak mess. Come on gurl. You can do better than people who don’t like same sex marriage will feel uncomfortable.

Requirements for marriage licenses vary from state to state, and couples  determining where to get married can find it baffling. Here’s a state-by-state equal marriage guide:

Connecticut:

The “Constitution State” followed Massachusetts  on Nov. 12, 2008, in allowing same-sex marriage. On Oct. 1, 2010, all existing civil unions will be automatically transformed into marriages.

* Where: Connecticut allows couples from out-of-state to get married, though they must apply for a license in either the town in which one of the individuals lives  or in the town in which the couple plans to marry. Couples can get the license from a local vital records office.
* How: Both partners must be present and must apply for the license in person.
* Out of state couples: Connecticut allows non-residents to get married.
* Waiting period: None.
* Cost: $35, cash only.
* ID: In addition to a photo ID (divers license, visa, passport, or military ID), those wishing to get a license will need to know their social security number, their mother’s maiden name, their parent’s birthplace, the date and location of the wedding, and the contact information of the wedding officiant.
* Other: The license expires after 65 days.

Iowa:

As of April 27, 2009, Iowa allows  gay residents and non-residents of the state to get married.
* Where: Couples should contact the county clerk’s office in the city they live in or wish to get married in to find out where to apply for a license.
* How: Both partners wishing to get married must be present when applying for the license.
* Out of state couples: Couples from out of state are allowed to marry in Iowa, though couples should contact the county clerk’s office to make sure no additional information is needed for non-residents.
* Waiting period: Iowa requires a three-day waiting period.
* Cost: $30, cash only. This does vary from county to county.
* ID: Along with a photo ID and social security information, Iowa requires one witness over the age of 18 be present when applying for the license.
* Other: Licenses are valid for six months.

Maine:

Though the state passed an equal marriage bill on May 6, 2009, the law will not go into effect until Sept. 14. A  people’s veto could prevent the law from taking affect – conservative activists are working to overturn the law now.

* Where: Couples should contact the local county clerk office to find the location of the town office where they need to get their license.
* How: Both partners must be present at the town office in order to get a license
* Out-of-state couples: Out-of-state residents can apply in any city or town office in the state;  it does not have to be in the same town as the wedding.
* Waiting period: None.
* Cost: $10 per person, cash only. Couples must also pay the cost of the certified documents, which varies.
* ID: A photo ID may be required, along with social security information.
* Other: The license is valid or 90 days, and no blood tets are required.

NEXT PAGE: Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire

“It will be a selling point when it comes to trying to lure people with same-sex partners who are being wooed for a job,”  M.V. Lee Badgett, a University of Massachusetts economist who studies gay and lesbian issues, told Reuters.

Gay and lesbian couples who are part of the “creative class” – highly educated professionals, entrepreneurs and artists – were 2.5 times more likely to move to Massachusetts in the three years following the approval of same-sex marriage, according to a study released in May by the Williams Institute of the University of California.

The relocating couples were more likely to be younger and female than before same-sex marriage was approved.

Even straight members of the “creative class” regard states with marriage equality as more appealing places to live.

“It broadly suggests you have an environment in which people who are seen as different are accepted,” said Gary Gates, the UCLA demographer  and the lead author of the study.

See the full Reuters story here.

“Are the people of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire more sexually literate than Californians?” asked the National Sexuality Resource Center, a San Francisco-based think tank, naming the states where gays can or soon will be able to wed.

The California Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the ban on gay marriage, known as Proposition 8, in a state that’s home to 14 percent of the nation’s same-sex couples and was the first to offer gays the spousal rights of marriage without being ordered to by a court.

Voters in 2008 passed the constitutional amendment, which trumped an earlier state Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage.

In spite of the setback in the state, gay rights advocates say they still believe what happens there is important no matter the outcome. Supporters and opponents spent $83 million on the Proposition 8 campaign last year, making it the most expensive election on a social issue in the nation’s history.

“Certainly California remains very important in this epic struggle just because it’s so big,” said Richard Socarides, who served as President Bill Clinton’s adviser on gay civil rights.

And because of its size, gay rights advocates say they’ll continue their campaign to win over more voters. Leaders of Equality California and Courage Campaign said they have started canvassing in more conservative parts of the state, working with religious and ethnic groups and otherwise learning from mistakes made during last year’s failed campaign.

“The biggest thing California can do is win back marriage at the ballot box,” said Mary Bonauto, the civil rights director of Boston-based Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, which brought the lawsuit that led to Massachusetts becoming the first state to sanction same-sex marriage.

“We have won marriage in courts, we have even now marriage winning in legislatures,” she said. “To win it with the people would crumble the right wing’s whole house of cards.”

Bonauto said that if California advocates succeeded in getting Proposition 8 reversed, it would mark an unprecedented milestone: 28 other states have constitutional bans on same-sex marriage but none have been challenged with a popular vote.

As California gay rights groups prepared to launch a campaign to repeal Proposition 8 at the ballot box next year, two lawyers announced Tuesday they had filed a federal lawsuit challenging the initiative in the hopes of getting the case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Theodore B. Olson and David Boies, the lawyers who represented opposing sides in the 2000 Bush v. Gore election challenge, said they think the high court is ripe to take on the issue. They filed on behalf of two gay men and two gay women.

“I felt it was very important we present the American people and the courts a unified front and tell the courts and the American people through our presence and our participation this is not about right or left or partisan politics,” Olson said. “This is about what we all share as Americans.”

But it wasn’t a move welcomed by all advocates. Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said the suit “sends a powerful message that the time for change has come,” but also warned the lawyers of the “only one shot at the U.S. Supreme Court.”

They and “any attorneys bringing a case that will affect the freedom and legal status of an entire community bear a very heavy responsibility to be certain they have fully considered the consequences,” Minter said.

Gay rights activists also were pressuring President Barack Obama to fulfill his campaign pledge to work toward repealing the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act. The law prevents couples in states that recognize same-sex unions from securing Social Security spousal benefits, filing joint taxes and other federal rights of marriage.

The focus, however, remained on working though state legislatures and voters to win marriage rights, said Evan Wolfson, executive director of New York-based Freedom to Marry.

“Winning marriage in more states is crucial not only for the families living in those states, but for creating a comfort level that sets the stage for a national resolution,” he said.