Marriage Debate in Vermont Staying Civil This Time Around

For many who lived through Vermont's not-so-civil debate making it the first state in America to allow civil unions, the memories remain painfully fresh: hate mail, threatening telephone messages, tense public meetings.

This time around, as the small northeastern state weighs whether to join neighboring Massachusetts in legalizing same-sex marriage, the debate is noticeably tamer with little of the vitriol and recrimination that surrounded its groundbreaking 2000 decision to legally recognize gay and lesbian couples.

It is early: Lawmakers say they are unlikely to push for a vote this year on pending legislation that would legalize full same-sex marriage, although a state-appointed panel has been gathering public input and is due to report to state lawmakers in April.

Although that absence of an impending vote may be what is keeping things civil, people involved in the debate have noticed a change in atmosphere.

''It's a very different tenor,'' said Beth Robinson, chairwoman of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, which supports full marriage rights for gay couples. ''People have had an opportunity to come to terms. Vermonters have had eight years to see the two guys next door, or the two women down the street who have a legally recognized relationship under the civil unions law.''

On December 20, 1999, the Vermont supreme court ruled that banning same-sex unions was unconstitutional and ordered state lawmakers to come up with a law accommodating them. That triggered a yearlong battle in which a state that prides itself on tolerance seemed to lack it.

Supporters and opponents alike streamed into Montpelier, the capital, to rally and lobby lawmakers.

When the law took effect July 1, 2000, it did not quell the controversy or the fallout. It became a central issue in that year's elections and 17 incumbents who voted in favor lost their seats.

''It was quite rancorous,'' said Stephen Cable, founder of Vermont Renewal, which opposed civil unions then and opposes gay marriage now.

''I have a box of hate mail you can't imagine. We got dried feces and used condoms in the mail. We had people stalking our vice president, who had an armed guard at her house for three weeks, 24/7,'' Cable said.

''It was a time unlike anything since the Vietnam War era, when you had the sense that the whole world around you was divided,'' said David Moats, author of Civil Wars: A Battle For Gay Marriage, a book about Vermont's civil unions controversy.

An Associated Press exit poll of voters that November found the state split 49% to 49% on whether civil unions were a good idea. Four years later, the poll asked voters to choose between three options for recognition of same-sex unions: full marriage, civil unions, or no recognition. Forty percent said they supported marriage, 37% civil unions, and 21% neither.

Other states followed Vermont's lead. Connecticut, New Jersey, and New Hampshire have endorsed civil unions, and California and Washington have enacted domestic-partner laws. Only Massachusetts permits same-sex marriage.

Last summer, the legislature appointed an 11-member Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection to explore the idea of gay marriage and hear how Vermonters feel about it. The panel, which opponents say is stacked with gay marriage supporters and have boycotted, has held seven hearings and has three more scheduled.

The hearings have generated plenty of input but no name-calling or personal attacks.

James LaPierre, who has a civil union partner and two children, saw the contrast firsthand. He went to a 2000 meeting on civil unions intending to get up and speak, but he was intimidated by the atmosphere and kept quiet.

''People would stand up and go to the microphone and there was jeering and catcalling,'' said LaPierre, 43, a nurse from Burlington. ''It was hateful and scary.''

Last month, LaPierre went to a hearing by the Commission on Family Recognition. This time the gathering was ''supportive'' and he got up and spoke. But it had fewer people -- about 100, by his count, compared with about 500 at the 2000 event.

''Instead of a hateful, unruly, mob-like meeting, it was civil and organized. There was representation of the other side, but only two or three people,'' he said.

Opponents believe the change in tone may have more to do with their boycott -- and the lack of impending action -- than acceptance of gay marriage.

''If they'd announced they were going to move on it this year and these hearings were on a bill we intend to have a vote on this year, you'd be seeing a much different scenario,'' said the Reverend Craig Bensen, president of Take It To The People, which opposes same-sex marriage.

Thomas Little, chairman of the house judiciary committee in 2000 and now the chair of Commission on Family Recognition, acknowledges that some gay marriage opponents are staying on the sidelines -- for now.

''Most people don't expect the legislature to take any action in 2008, and opponents, therefore, are keeping their powder dry until some point in the future, when it's more likely to become a legislative debate,'' he said. (John Curran, AP)