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VT Republicans, Model in Contradiction
VT Republicans, Model in Contradiction
MONTPELIER — The Republican majority in the Vermont House has demonstrated in the past month that it is a model in contradiction.
On the one hand the House has voted to repeal civil unions for gay and lesbian couples and replace it with a watered-down alternative dubbed reciprocal partnerships.
But, ironically enough, in doing so some of the most conservative members of the Republican caucus and most ardent opponents of gay rights also voted to give state sanction to same-sex relationships.
Political expediency was the cause.
Many Republicans were elected last fall on a campaign promise to do something about civil unions. But they were stymied in their attempts simply to repeal the landmark law without offering an alternative.
Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Peg Flory correctly warned them that repealing the law probably would just lead to another lawsuit that would in turn result in the courts ordering that gay and lesbian couples be granted marriage licenses.
So she devised reciprocal partnerships that would grant the rights and benefits of marriage to same-sex couples and to all others who cannot legally marry under state law.
Those primarily are pairs of blood relatives who cannot marry because of incest prohibitions.
Civil unions opponents did not like extending rights to gay and lesbian couples, but they said they had little alternative.
“It’s difficult because it still gives the same benefits to same-sex individuals, couples as the traditional marriage couple,” said Rep. Nancy Sheltra, R-Derby, one of the leading opponents of civil unions, who voted in favor of reciprocal partnerships.
Still, the bill would accomplish some of the goals of opponents because of changes it would make in the way couples obtain their partnerships. Unlike civil unions, they no longer would be required to have their unions certified by a judge, clergy member or justice of the peace in the same way that marriages are solemnized.
It also would require the reciprocal partnerships licenses to be issued by the Health Department instead of by individual town clerks.
“We see this as a step in the right direction,” said the Rev. Craig Bensen of Cambridge and a member of Take it to the People. “It’s a bill that makes sense only in the world defined by Baker.”
The bill is an insult to gay and lesbian couples, though, because it seeks to deny same-sex relationships some of the dignity that the Legislature recognized a year ago.
“Last year we crafted a Vermont compromise and we called it civil union,” said Rep. William Lippert, D-Hinesburg, one of two openly gay lawmakers. “What we have before us today is not just an expansion, as proclaimed, it in fact undoes that Vermont compromise called civil union. You cannot escape that.”
Even though Flory warned that a simple repeal would not meet constitutional muster, there were two efforts to do just that. One of the few heartening messages to emerge from the House this year is that there is nowhere near a majority that would support repeal without some kind of alternative.
A repeal proposal sponsored by Sheltra was rejected 111-30 and another was voted down 94-47.
And Republicans even had a very difficult time in pushing through the reciprocal partnerships alternative. Speaker Walter Freed had to break a 69-69 tie on the first of debate to advance the proposal to a final vote. And then it passed by just three votes, 72-69.