Forget the champagne, the matching wedding bands, all those e.e. And the registry accrues no benefits at all. Civil unions actually deliver rights. So I expect plenty of people from here will be going to Vermont. In the national debate over gay rights, Vermont's civil union law is a monumental legal turning point with the potential to advance the movement in giant steps, not those tedious but fundamental baby steps of past gains in the battle for full equality.
Civil union is a superb bundle of responsibilities and benefits.
Had the Vermont Legislature interpreted the state high court's ruling by simply rewriting existing civil marriage laws to include gays and lesbians, the gay wedding march would have been a road race. Go to Vermont, get the marriage license, return home and tell the city clerk you're hitched. With the civil union law, it's all those things and hundreds more. Backlash is a fact of life in the civil rights arena. It took 19 years for the U.S. Supreme Court to declare race discrimination in marriage illegal throughout the land.