Most Vermonters Support Fairness, Equality, and the Freedom to Marry
The good news is that times have changed dramatically since the difficult debate in 2000 regarding the civil union law. Our neighbors to the south in Massachusetts, and our neighbors to the north in Canada, have joined countries around the world in allowing same-sex couples to marry. The conversation about the freedom to marry has reached every state in the country, and Vermont, with our first-step civil union law, is no longer leading this national civil rights struggle.
Here in Vermont, attitudes toward the freedom to marry have changed. In November, 2004, the Associated Press reported that its Vermont exit polls found that 40% of Vermonters believed that gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to marry, 37% didn't support the right to marry for same-sex couples, but did support our civil union law, and only 20% opposed both.
In 2006, independent pollster ORC Macro, in a poll commissioned by the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, found that 53% of Vermonters support the legal right of gay and lesbian couples to marry, or lean in that direction, while only 40% of Vermonters oppose or lean against the freedom to marry for same-sex couples. Review the polling results in detail.
The days when the civil union law represented the best same-sex couples could attain in Vermont have passed. Vermonters are ready to finish the job, and embrace the freedom to marry. It's fair. It's just. And it's time.