MONTPELIER, Vt. — With Valentine's Day around the corner, Lois Farnham was moved to wonder, "Have you ever seen a romantic song written about your registered partner?"
The question has special meaning for Farnham, a school nurse who for 27 years has lived with Holly Puterbaugh, a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Vermont. Puterbaugh and Farnham want to get married, a civil rite that they believe is their civil right. Along with two other same-sex couples, the pair filed a lawsuit that in December produced the state Supreme Court's landmark ruling ordering the Legislature to enact a law granting gay and lesbian couples the same rights and privileges as heterosexual married couples.
Acting on the court's mandate, a legislative committee Wednesday unveiled a 22-page proposal that skirts the term "marriage" in favor of a far-reaching domestic partnership system for gay and lesbian couples. The carefully crafted document only added fuel to the firestorm that has vaulted Vermont--with a population "about the size of a California mall," as one lawmaker put it--into the center of a passionate debate on the subject of same-sex marriage.
As Vermont appears poised to become the first state to enact such sweeping same-sex benefits, outsiders have descended on the Green Mountain state to lobby for both sides. Gay organizations see Vermont as leading the charge for an effort that failed in Hawaii and Alaska. Presidential candidates find themselves fielding questions about what will happen if gay marriage, or some variation, is legalized here. Family rights defenders fear Vermont is undermining the foundations of civilized society.
Christian right radio talk show host Randall Terry is so appalled that he has set up shop just a few hundred feet from the gold-domed state capitol. "This is an assault on the institution of marriage," said Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, the radical anti-abortion group based in Binghamton, N.Y. "It's their Normandy Beach. It's the immoral victory that they, the homosexual community, have been looking for."
Supporters and opponents alike agree that Vermont may well serve as a model for other states, including California. In California the issue is being addressed in a different form on March 7, when residents will vote on Proposition 22, which would bar recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other states.
