montpelier

The half-dozen lobbyists who crowded into a lawmaker's office in Sacramento recently didn't come bearing campaign cash or votes to swap. Instead, they recounted tales of high school torment as fresh as their faces.

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.