After a plethora of public hearings and studying the matter for nearly a year, the Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection said that the nation's oldest civil-unions did not meet the states' fairness and equality requirements. The 2000 enabling legislation needs, needs, well, they won't say.
"They all hide behind each other," said Karen Loewy, GLAD attorney and co-counsel in Goodridge at an SSM symposium in Rhode Island last month about various states' politicians. Such prescience.
The 11-member commission released its report yesterday. You can see a PDF file of it here. Do look for clear statements of why marriage is the only equalizer. Don't look for a conclusion that the legislature create equal marriage. Do look for study results that point to marriage equality as the only solution to fix the problem. Don't look for a demand or even suggestion that this occur.
As unbelievable as it seems after the study, testimony and particularly the commission's own findings, they could not bring themselves to state the obvious. Cue Loewy's comment yet again.
Instead (see page 28) for the barnyard cackling that plunges into silence and torpor with four recommendations:
- More study. Study the Massachusetts SSM experience.
- More study. Study the Vermont tax system to see if they can massage civil union provisions to replicate the ease and benefits of marriage in tax preparation and payment.
- More review. Hit the research on families and kids in various marriages to see if there is some consensus on what is best for kids.
- Fire drill on civil unions. Try to do the legislature's job on existing civil unions. Second guess what to do about existing ones instead of leaving it with lawmakers, as it is now.
After the eight hearings and all the study, this quivering group did not have the collective courage to finish the job.
Yet this delay will not take the pressure off to align the state's equality and anti-discrimination laws with the civil unions one. "You can absolutely expect us to be back in 2009 pushing the issue," responded Beth Robinson of the Freedom to Marry Task Force.
This report is an amazing illustration of ill-logic and cowardice. I'll pummel the pages and look for Leonard Link's analysis. I'm sure more will follow.
Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Vermont, same sex marriage, civil unions, marriage equality
4 comments:
with all due respect, they apparently were not commissioned to make a recommendation, but simply to study and describe the situation in an unbiased manner. if making recommendations was not in their mandate, i can't be upset with them.
according to this story, many local activists are happy with the result. http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=73330
coming from a research science background, i can see the merit in the approach they took. if the commission made recommendations, they could be dismissed as biased. however, by just presenting findings, those findings remain less vulnerable to criticism.
p.s. i actually am interested in their "what to do with CUs if marriage is available" question. here in WA, every time the scope of the DPs are expanded, you get a letter from the sec'y of state saying "here are the changes. if you don't like them, dissolve your DP by date X." i've often wondered if the state really can legally pull the rug out from under your old style DP like that. what the state giveth, the state can taketh away? no one complains though, since i don't know of anyone who wants the more thread-bare version of 2nd class documentation. we in stepwise DP states shall always strive for a better, nobler class of sub-citizenship.
Well, then, I can be upset with them for you. I read the damned thing and the hearings with their findings scream out for the obvious conclusion.
Playing literal with their mandate is pretty silly in the face of all the evidence and the carefully defined problems. Expecting the typical sluggish legislature to find enlightenment in the implied is beyond not wise.
We can be damned sure the anti-marriage equality folk will pounce on this.
My thoughts seem to wander to the time when we had seperate drinking fountains for blacks. There seems to be no reasoning behind the need for civil unions over marriage equality.
Seperate but equal needs to be evacuated.
I also agree that while this was written in a more scientific way I would have prefered a statement from them that deflates the haters spin on this.
I'm with you, John. No matter how literally the report meets the minimal charge to the commission, it fails both logically and morally. Stopping short of saying only marriage equality meets the requirements of the law and the legislature should fix that does not do the public any service. There are only two dots to connect here.
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