New Firestorm Erupts Over Vermont’s Domestic Partner Plan

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, Lois Farnham was moved to wonder, “Have you ever seen a romantic song written about your registered partner?”

The question has special meaning for Farnham, a school nurse who for 27 years has lived with Holly Puterbaugh, a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Vermont. Puterbaugh and Farnham want to get married, a civil rite that they believe is their civil right. Along with two other same-sex couples, the pair filed a lawsuit that in December produced the state Supreme Court’s landmark ruling ordering the Legislature to enact a law granting gay and lesbian couples the same rights and privileges as heterosexual married couples.

Acting on the court’s mandate, a legislative committee Wednesday unveiled a 22-page proposal that skirts the term “marriage” in favor of a far-reaching domestic partnership system for gay and lesbian couples. The carefully crafted document only added fuel to the firestorm that has vaulted Vermont--with a population “about the size of a California mall,” as one lawmaker put it--into the center of a passionate debate on the subject of same-sex marriage.

As Vermont appears poised to become the first state to enact such sweeping same-sex benefits, outsiders have descended on the Green Mountain state to lobby for both sides. Gay organizations see Vermont as leading the charge for an effort that failed in Hawaii and Alaska. Presidential candidates find themselves fielding questions about what will happen if gay marriage, or some variation, is legalized here. Family rights defenders fear Vermont is undermining the foundations of civilized society.

Christian right radio talk show host Randall Terry is so appalled that he has set up shop just a few hundred feet from the gold-domed state capitol. “This is an assault on the institution of marriage,” said Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, the radical anti-abortion group based in Binghamton, N.Y. “It’s their Normandy Beach. It’s the immoral victory that they, the homosexual community, have been looking for.”

Supporters and opponents alike agree that Vermont may well serve as a model for other states, including California. In California the issue is being addressed in a different form on March 7, when residents will vote on Proposition 22, which would bar recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other states.

Many cities have extended certain benefits to couples who are not married, including gay and lesbian couples. But the scope of the effort in Vermont, said T.J. Tu of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a New York-based gay rights group, is “clearly a watershed that could push the gay rights agenda in a direction we never thought possible even 10 years ago.”

For better or for worse, as they say in the marriage trade, national urgency is of scant concern in a state that prides itself on tolerance and individualism. Vermont likes to think of itself as a state of firsts: first to join the original 13 Colonies, first state to outlaw slavery, first state to grant (in its 1777 constitution) the vote to all men, not just landowners.

“Most of us have a philosophy of live and let live,” said Tom Little, a Republican who chairs the Judiciary Committee in the state House of Representatives. “We value our independence and our freedom.”

Among Vermont’s 548,000 residents, there is no evidence that the homosexual population is greater or smaller than elsewhere. Still, said Little, “the reality is that in Vermont, there are a lot of families where the model is not a so-called traditional nuclear family. There are a lot of single-parent families and a lot of families where two adults of the same gender are raising children.”

In many ways, said state Rep. Bill Lippert, a Democrat who serves with Little on the committee that drafted the proposal for same-sex partnership, Vermont is “essentially one community, with many small communities within it.”

Lippert, a psychologist who for seven years has lived with a male partner, said the state’s heritage of tolerance has helped gay and lesbian residents to “bring our stories to our neighbors, to our towns, to our communities.”

Yet Lippert was one of three members of the 11-member committee who voted against legislative wording that chose “partnership” over “marriage” in the draft legislation. The wording pleased Democratic Gov. Howard Dean, who stated repeatedly that he was uncomfortable extending the term “marriage” to same-sex couples. For his part, Lippert said he was hugely disappointed that, rather than amending the state’s conventional marriage statute, the committee sought parallel legal status.

Middlebury psychotherapist Stannard Baker, also a plaintiff in the initial lawsuit, shared that sentiment. “I think being a registered partner is a little like being a person of color during apartheid in South Africa,” Baker said. “No matter how good they make it, it will still be second class.”

Little said he expects the full House--67 Republicans, 77 Democrats, four Progressives and two Independents--to vote on the measure by mid-March and the state Senate to take up its version by mid-April.

The notion that, using the U.S. Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause, the benefits of same-sex partnership in Vermont might be transferable to other states horrifies many opponents of the legislation.

The domestic partnership proposal applies exclusively to same-sex couples. Just as heterosexual couples obtain marriage licenses, gay and lesbian couples would obtain domestic partnership licenses from their town clerks. Once solemnized by a judge, justice of the peace or clergy member, the partnership agreement would take effect. A domestic partnership could be terminated in family court, using the same procedures as a divorce. The bill’s overarching philosophy is that “domestic partners shall have the same benefits, privileges and responsibilities under state law that are enjoyed by spouses in a marriage.”

As Puterbaugh, wearing what she wishes were in fact a wedding ring, observed, “There are over 300 laws just in Vermont that define different things that are available just because of marriage. These include some pretty basic things, such as visiting someone in the hospital or taking bereavement leave if a member of your partner’s family dies.”

Same-sex marriage laws came close to fruition in the 1990s in Hawaii and Alaska. In response, about 30 states passed “defense of marriage” legislation to stake out the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.

“Obviously, at least two-thirds of the nation believes this is an important threat to be stopped,” said John Paulk, homosexuality and gender analyst for Focus on the Family, a nonprofit Christian organization based in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Worse merely than seeking the benefits of marriage, Paulk said, by pushing for legalized partnership, gay couples “are not just seeking the privileges of marriage per se. They are looking for validation of homosexuality.”

In a storefront office here, sparely furnished and staffed by a few ardent volunteers, Terry thundered his agreement.

“The whole marriage debate was just a ruse,” he said. “And the Christian community took the bait. This is not about two guys holding hands at a baseball game. This is about a tragic, unholy and unhealthy lifestyle. What they want is our money to sustain that lifestyle.”

Adopting a term such as “domestic partnership,” Terry argued, is actually far worse than extending the word “marriage” to homosexuals. “The country would vomit out the whole concept of homosexual marriage,” he said. Domestic partnership “numbs them. This contract is being used as the steppingstone to marriage.”

But while struggling to find terms that might take some of the sting out of the marriage-partnership debate, Little said his committee keeps in mind that constituents come in many configurations.

Same-sex households, he said, “are families. Some people may not want to hear that, but they are families, and they are entitled to the rights and protections of the Constitution.” Like it or not, he went on, “the Constitution is not based on the Old Testament.”