In a part history lesson and part stump speech to a University of Minnesota Law School audience, Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan said that civil rights laws restrict freedom and that blacks fare better in America than people think. Some of the students shook their heads and sighed audibly at Buchanan's answer to a question about what he would do, as president, to improve the standing of blacks in America. It allows people like me to say it's still an issue that still exists in our society. We still need to address that we're not done with racism. As Dean seeks a fifth two-year term, civil unions seem to dominate no matter how hard the Democratic governor and his two chief rivals try to focus on other issues.
Recent polls show that slightly more than half the voters oppose the civil unions law.
Dean's favorable ratings have plummeted from 63 percent in February, before the law was enacted, to 41 percent last month. Although he signed the measure into law, Dean was not an early champion of what has become the closest thing to gay marriage in the United States. The Vermont Supreme Court ruled in December that gay couples were unconstitutionally denied the rights and responsibilities of marriage. Directed by the court to remedy the problem, the Legislature drafted the civil union act, which closely parallels marriage law. The audience stayed steady even though television viewers had more choices Tuesday night than they had for the second debate, on Oct. 11.