You Go, Vermont!
Well, this is exciting. We'd been following the progress of legislature in Vermont that would bring marriage equality to the Green Mountain State, first as it easily passed in the Senate, through young James Neiley's testimony in favor of marriage equality in a house hearing, which apparently worked since the house also passed the bill.
We were irritated that Governor Jim Douglas promised to veto the bill should it pass both chambers. Apparently many Vermont legislators were also irritated, feeling that he was trying to manipulate their vote. It seems that one should not piss off the legislators.
Word just reached Bearcastle HQ within the last half hour that both chambers of the Vermont Legislature has voted by wide margins* to override the Governor's veto, thus making Vermont the fifth state to approve marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples, but currently the fourth state to hold on to it; we'll see whether it comes back to California sooner or later.
Which state will be next and how quickly can they do it? I suspect that history will not give much effort to remembering the order in which states recognize marriage equality for all their citizens much beyond the first five or six. Besides, the tens of millions of dollars that is expected to flow into those few states that do will quickly become diluted, so alacrity is indicated.
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* "The vote was 23-5 to override in the state Senate and 100-49 to override in the House"; AP, "Vermont Legalizes Gay Marriage With Veto Override", Washington Post, 7 April 2009 @ 11:19 am CDT.
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I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Tuesday, 7 April 2009 at 23.35
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It's impressive that not only did Vermont pass this, but
did so with a veto override. That indicates broad popular
support.
on Wednesday, 8 April 2009 at 10.51
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Plus, it really irritates the anti-gay crowd who suddenly have to retool their favorite "activist judges" talking points (which hasn't gotten much traction since all of these gay-loving "activist judges" have been Republican appointees. See: Timothy Kinkaid, "Those Activist Republican Appointees", Box Turtle Bulletin, 4 April 2009).
But in Iowa, too, legislative support of the Supreme Court's decision there has also been very strong, and I think we'll hear positive things directly from the people, too. Iowans are sort of the midwest equivalent of Vermont free thinkers–although I will admit that it has been useful for marriage-equality marketing that the rest of the nation think of them as corn-fed conservatives.