Vt. Court Backs Equal Rights for Gay Couples

Vermont took a major step Monday toward becoming the first state to recognize “domestic partnerships” for same-sex couples that will carry the same legal protections as marriage.

In a ruling hailed as a landmark by gay-rights advocates, the state Supreme Court said that Vermont must offer gay couples the “benefits and protections that flow from marriage.”

The court did not say how that must be done. Instead, it gave the state Legislature two basic choices: Lawmakers must either redefine marriage to include same-sex couples or give them equal legal benefits by creating “a parallel ‘domestic partnership’ system.”

The governor and state attorney general predicted that the Vermont Legislature would adopt the second option.

If so, gay and lesbian couples there would be the first to have the full range of legal benefits accorded to married people. These include health insurance, child custody, inheritances and property divisions after separations.

Although the Vermont court’s ruling has no immediate impact outside the state, gay-rights advocates across the nation said that they hope it will encourage other states to give greater protections to same-sex couples.

“This is an incredibly important step forward for lesbian and gay families. The [Vermont] court ordered an end to unequal treatment of gay and lesbian couples and no court has ordered that before,” said Jon Davidson, supervising attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense Fund in Los Angeles.

However, because it stopped short of recognizing same-sex unions as marriages, the Vermont court may have defused the backlash against granting more protections to gays and lesbians.

In recent years, the prospect that one state, such as Vermont or Hawaii--where many thought the state’s highest court would first rule same-sex marriages legitimate--would sanction same-sex unions as marriages set off a reaction in Congress and more than 30 states, including California.

The U.S. Constitution says that legal arrangements made in one state must be accorded “full faith and credit” in other states. Conservatives said they feared that same-sex couples could go to Hawaii, marry there and demand that their marriages be deemed valid in other states.

In response, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act in hopes of thwarting this prospect. Thirty states have enacted laws that say same-sex unions will not have the same status as marriages between men and women. In March, California voters will have the chance to vote on a similar measure that limits marriage to the union of a man and a woman.

But no state has yet accorded same-sex unions the full recognition of marriage.

Two weeks ago, the move to recognize same-sex marriages in Hawaii died quietly. A lawsuit brought by three same-sex couples was dismissed by the state Supreme Court because voters had passed a measure limiting marriages to heterosexuals. The vote came after a preliminary state court ruling saying that it is discriminatory to limit marriages based on sexual orientation.

And the Vermont ruling Monday does not give gays or lesbians a right to marry.

For that reason, the conservative Family Research Council here called Monday’s Vermont ruling a partial victory.

“Homosexual couples won’t be flocking to Vermont to get fake ‘marriage’ licenses,” said Janet Marshall, the group’s spokeswoman. She predicted, however, that “homosexual activists will continue their effort to radically redefine marriage elsewhere now that they have been rebuffed in Vermont.”

She also urged “the Green Mountain state’s legislators to resist this immoral order for sex-partner subsidies,” referring to the equal protections mandated by the state court.

In Sacramento, a spokesman for the ballot measure opposing gay marriages had a mixed reaction to the Vermont ruling.

“It helps our campaign because it crystallizes the issue for the voters,” said Rob Stutzman, the campaign manager for Proposition 22, the “Limit on Marriage” initiative. “If Vermont is redefining marriage, it shows Proposition 22 is absolutely necessary.”

However, he said, the notion of giving legal protections to same-sex couples does not set off alarms. “We don’t have an opinion on domestic partnerships. For us, it is either a marriage or isn’t,” Stutzman said.

In October, Gov. Gray Davis signed into law a bill that recognizes “domestic partnerships” in California, but partners are given only limited legal rights. They are entitled to family visiting rights in hospitals and, if they are state employees, they are entitled to health insurance.

The Vermont case was brought in 1997 by three same-sex couples who had sought marriage licenses. But rather than ruling directly on their claim, the five justices said that the state’s Constitution gives them the right to equal “benefits and protections.”

Mary Bonauto, a lawyer for the Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, called the outcome “a legal and cultural milestone. The court recognized [that] same-sex couples need and deserve the same legal rights and protections that other people take for granted.”

Vermont Atty. Gen. William H. Sorrell said he was pleased that the justices had followed a middle course. “I can tell you a lot of Vermonters are relieved. They didn’t have a problem with benefits. They just didn’t want it to be marriage,” Sorrell said in a phone interview.

Davidson, the gay-rights lawyer in Los Angeles, said he was disappointed that the court opinion stopped short of granting gays and lesbians the right to marry. “The problem with a separate-but-equal system, we have learned, is that it is rarely equal,” Davidson said.