The New York Times

Thursday, April 20, 2000

Vermont Senate Votes for Gay Civil Unions

By CAREY GOLDBERG

MONTPELIER, Vt., April 19 -- State Senator Mark A. MacDonald, a strapping beef farmer and social studies teacher, knows he may have cost himself his part-time legislative job today when he voted with a majority of his colleagues to approve marriage-like civil unions for gay couples.

But, he said, "I had to do it."

If he had voted against civil unions, Mr. MacDonald said, how was he going to explain it to his junior high students?

"That I voted the way I did so I could get re-elected?" he said. And "to have the voters think I was a good fellow and ignore all the testimony they paid me to listen to?"

The groundbreaking bill, which offers marriage benefits for gay couples, gained final approval in the Vermont Senate today in a 19-to-11 vote. Two of the chamber's 13 Republicans joined all of its 17 Democrats in passing the measure.

It must now negotiate one last hurdle next week in the House of Representatives, which approved an almost identical bill last month, before it goes to Gov. Howard Dean for his promised signature. It would then take effect this summer.

Passage of the measure would be an American first. But it is all the more striking in that so many Vermont lawmakers like Mr. MacDonald, a Democrat, have repeatedly voted in support of civil unions despite indications from public opinion polls, phone calls, letters and town meeting votes that they are bucking their constituents' will and risking their seats in this fall's election.

"You see senators in tears -- they know this vote may well be their last," said Senator Peter E. Shumlin, the president pro tem.

"I've never seen a vote that required more courage."

Individual seats and the slim Democratic majority in both chambers is at stake, Senator Shumlin said.

"I've worked very hard to be in the majority," he said. "I recognize that today's action jeopardized that, and I know my fellow senators recognize we jeopardize that. But there's a time when you have to stand up for what you believe in, and this is it."

Standing up, for some lawmakers, has required extra courage: several members of the House have reported recent vandalism to their cars, which they believe is connected to their votes on civil union. Some say they have asked to give up their legislators' license plates for regular ones because they are tired of obscene gestures and harassment.

Many lawmakers have also described being appalled at the mail and phone calls they have received from opponents of civil union, who say the legislators are working for the devil and will go to hell and should forget about being re-elected.

Those lawmakers also take pains to say that such hostile messages are few in number and that most of the gay marriage debate has been conducted civilly.

In some cases the threats appear to have backfired by convincing lawmakers of the depth and breadth of anti-gay feeling here, persuading them to vote for civil unions.

Several senators said hostile messages and phone calls made them think: if this is what it is like for me, what have gays had to endure their whole lives?

Senator Nancy I. Chard, a Democrat, said today that she had complained about the nasty mail and calls to a colleague, a House member who had come out of a cancer survivors' support meeting to find all her car windows smashed. Her friend's response, Ms. Chard said, was that she was grateful for such messages "because for just a few minutes, when I read those letters, I'm able to honestly walk in the shoes of another person." Senator Chard, asked today if she risked losing her seat with her vote, said, "All of us do, but so what?"

Lawmakers who oppose civil unions have received calls and letters calling them bigots and homophobes, some say, even though they are only trying to follow the will of their voters or their own moral and religious convictions. But they do not worry aloud about risking their seats, for which they are paid about $500 a week for every week the General Assembly is in session, usually about 16 weeks a year.

No public opinion poll run by a neutral organization has asked specifically whether Vermonters support civil unions, but the vast majority of towns that discussed the issue in town meetings last month opposed the idea, and past polls showed that a majority, although a shrinking one, opposed gay marriage.

On March 2, a Burlington Free Press poll found Vermonters about equally divided over the state Supreme Court's decision in December that same-sex couples deserved the same protections as heterosexual spouses.

Opponents of civil unions -- like the Roman Catholic Bishop of Burlington, who called it "a very sad day for the majority of Vermonters" -- have repeatedly called for a constitutional amendment, which would be voted on by the public, or at least a nonbinding referendum to give the citizens a chance to weigh in.

When Senator Richard W. Sears Jr., a Democrat and the chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, was asked whether he thought his vote in favor of civil unions had placed his seat in jeopardy, he replied instantly, "Oh, yes, sure, no question about that."