Brief History of Vermont's Freedom to Marry Movement
Inspired by the early successes of Hawaii's push for the freedom to marry in the early 90's, a small group of committed Vermonters formed the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force to educate our fellow Vermonters about the issues surrounding the freedom to marry, and to advocate for full inclusion of same-sex couples in Vermont's marriage laws.
In 1997, three Vermont same-sex couples sought marriage licenses from their town clerks. When the clerks refused, the couples sued the State of Vermont for unconstitutionally denying them the right to marry. In December, 1999 the Vermont Supreme Court handed down its decision in that case, known as Baker v. Vermont.
The Baker decision was both groundbreaking and disappointing. The Court recognized that Vermont's marriage laws unconstitutionally denied same-sex couples a host of important legal protections and obligations that come with civil marriage; however, the Court stopped short of deciding whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to be legally married, and did not order the State of Vermont to issue marriage licenses to the plaintiffs. Instead, the Court deferred to the Vermont Legislature to take action to extend the legal protections and obligations of civil marriage to same-sex couples.
VFMTF urged the Legislature to do the simplest, fairest thing and simply amend Vermont's marriage laws to include same-sex couples. After weeks of intensive deliberation, the Legislature decided not to move to full equality for same-sex couples in one step, but instead, to pass a civil union law that created a new and separate family status for same-sex couples. Once the marriage option was definitively off the table, VFMTF ultimately chose to support the civil union law as a step toward full equality. We made it clear at the time that this compromise measure did not satisfy our moral and constitutional claim to full inclusion, but we believed that once Vermonters saw that recognizing and protecting same-sex couples made some families more secure and harmed nobody, they would readily embrace full equality by including same-sex couples in marriage.
Even this more modest step was extremely controversial at the time; as of 2000, no state had passed laws protecting same-sex couples that were nearly as comprehensive as Vermont's civil union law. The bill passed by a narrow margin. Read the text of Representative Bill Lippert's powerful statement from the floor of the House during that emotional debate.
Vermont's passage of a civil union law did not end VFMTF's work. After several years focused on protecting the civil union law and promoting broader acceptance of that law in Vermont, VFMTF turned its attention back to our primary mission: the freedom to marry for same-sex couples in Vermont.