Vermont joins 3 states in allowing gay marriage

The Vermont Legislature voted yesterday to permit same-sex couples to marry - making it the first state in the union to legalize gay marriage through a vote of lawmakers rather than a court action.

The vote comes four days after the Iowa Supreme Court ruled to permit gay marriage, and brings to four the number of states that allow gay marriage.

"The emotion that is going around this building right now - how good people feel - it's palpable," said Vermont state Senate Majority Leader John Campbell, who led his colleagues yesterday in overriding Gov. Jim Douglas' veto. "It's not often that you get in your career to be able to fight for someone's civil rights."

In his veto message, the governor said he supported civil unions, which Vermont was the first state to bestow and has had since 2000, but that he believes that marriage should remain between a man and a woman. The Vermont House voted, 100-49, to override him - the bare minimum needed.

Marriages will begin in Vermont in September. They are now legal in Connecticut and Massachusetts and will begin in Iowa later this month. After the vote, the chambers burst into applause.

Opponents of gay marriage, meanwhile, condemned the decision, and signaled that they would launch a public relations counterattack by buying air time in several television markets, including Iowa and much of the Northeast, plus New Hampshire, where lawmakers are poised to vote on a gay marriage law.

"Today is a truly sad day for Vermont and this nation," said Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage.

Brown said he hoped the ad campaign, which he said would eventually include more than $1.5 million worth of air time, would "highlight how same-sex marriage undermines the core civil rights of those who believe in the simple truth that marriage is the union of one man and one woman."

The ad, made available to the Los Angeles Times, presents a multi-ethnic front. It begins with a worried-looking blond woman declaring, "There is a storm gathering . . . and I am afraid." Another woman steps forward: "I am parent, helplessly watching public schools teach my son that gay marriage is OK." Then a black man declares that "there is hope: a rainbow coalition . . . coming together in love to protect marriage. Join Us."

Gay rights activists, however, were thrilled yesterday, hailing the vote in Vermont, along with another action that day - a decision by the Washington, D.C., City Council to recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere.

"This is a week we all will remember: first Iowa, then Vermont, then D.C ," said Jenny Pizer, the marriage director for Lambda Legal. "We have turned another critical corner in this equal rights movement."

Among the celebrants in Montpelier yesterday were former state lawmaker Robert Dostis and his longtime partner, Chuck Kletecka. Dostis recalled efforts to expand gay rights dating to an anti-discrimination law passed in 1992.

"It's been a very long battle. It's been almost 20 years to get to this point," Dostis said. "I think finally, most people in Vermont understand that we're a couple like any other couple."

The events in Vermont and Washington came as the California Supreme Court considers whether to overturn Proposition 8, the November ballot measure that banned gay marriages in California.

The measure amended the California Constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman following a state Supreme Court ruling last May that allowed them. During the five months gay marriage was legal in California, more than 18,000 same sex couples tied the knot.