The Bilerico Project

Maine: What Happens Next

ellen@bilerico.com (Ellen Andersen) — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:30:00 -0500

As Nancy Polikoff has noted, Maine recorded a number of "firsts" today. It became the first state to pass marriage equality without first trying a quasi-parallel status such as civil unions. And Maine's Gov. Baldacci became the first governor in the nation to sign a marriage equality bill.

But given the realities of Maine politics, this game is nowhere close to over. Laws in Maine usually go into effect 90 days after the legislature adjourns (somewhere around the end of June). But before that 90 day period is over, opponents of a law can try to gather enough signatures--about 55,000 right now-- to force the measure to a public vote. If opponents get those signatures in on time, implementation of the law will be suspended until a referendum can be held. This provision is commonly known as a "people's veto."

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Judging Supreme Court Possibilities

ellen@bilerico.com (Ellen Andersen) — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:30:00 -0500

There's a frenzy-fest of speculation over potential nominees to the Supreme Court, and since I'm an egghead, I've been following it closely. A lot of the reporting has been grating on me, but it took these two analyses for me to pinpoint exactly why. Go read 'em and tell me what you think.

An Unnatural Woman: The secret life of a Supreme Court short-lister by Dahlia Lithwick and Hanna Rosin at Slate.com
Critical Reporting by M. LeBlanc at Bitch Ph.D.

Those northeastern liberals are at it again...

ellen@bilerico.com (Ellen Andersen) — Wed, 06 May 2009 09:30:00 -0500

Yesterday, the Maine House of Representatives voted 89 to 57 in favor of marriage equality. The State Senate approved a virtually identical bill last week by a vote of 21-14. The bill will now head back to the Senate for final approval, which could happen as early as tomorrow.

Also scheduled for today: a vote by the New Hampshire House of Representatives on that state's marriage equality bill. The House is widely expected to pass it, joining the NH Senate, which gave its approval last week.

By the end of the week then, the governors of two more states may have marriage bills on their desks. I don't have a clear sense of what's going to happen then (my crystal ball is in the shop). Both governors have, in the past, indicated their opposition to marriage equality, but neither has issued a veto threat (unlike Vermont's governor did last month). While I'd be surprised if either governor signed the bill, it's possible that they might let the bill become law without their signatures. If it happens anywhere, my money is on Maine, for what it's worth.

And no, it doesn't look like the there's a big enough margin in either state to override a veto.

Lesbian behaving badly

ellen@bilerico.com (Ellen Andersen) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:00:00 -0500

Last Thursday, an appellate court in NY ruled--in a unanimous, unsigned opinion--that Vermont civil unions don't count in determining who is and who isn't a parent for purposes of custody. More specifically, the court ruled that a NY woman whose same-sex partner gave birth to a child after the couple entered into a Vermont civil union (and also signed the NYC Domestic Partner registry, btw) has no standing to assert parental rights after the couple broke up. Since Debra (the non-biological mother) was neither a "biological" nor an "adoptive" parent, the court ruled, she simply doesn't count as a parent for purposes of New York custody law.

I think the ruling is both unwise and an unnecessarily narrow reading of both the relevant statutes and prior case law, and I hope the NY Court of Appeals (the state's highest court) will overturn it.

While I'm a little pissed at the court, I'm really pissed at Janice R. the biological mother.

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Reflecting on Vermont

ellen@bilerico.com (Ellen Andersen) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:00:00 -0500

I'm a little bit shaky inside right now. Part of it is the whiplash that comes from moving from a state (Indiana) where LGBT people have been fighting a rearguard action to defeat an anti-marriage amendment to a state where the legislature is actually supportive of marriage equality. Still getting used to that.

The bigger part of my internal shakes at the moment comes from the awesome impact of having my common humanity recognized by my government. And not even by the courts (as grateful as I am to the Supreme Court of Iowa and all the courts that preceded it). Courts are the venues where the frenzy of public opinion is at least supposed to take a back seat to the reason of the law. But the legislature embodies the reasoned voice of the people. They're not bound to explain and justify their votes in the ways that courts are. They can vote any damn way they please. And two-thirds of the House -- and more than two-thirds of the Senate -- of my new state have finally been convinced that same-sex couples can not legitimately, can not fairly, can not reasonably, be segregated into an institution designed to award them formal legal equality while maintaining our cultural inequality.

A number of really thoughtful scholars (Gayle Rubin, Carol Johnson, and Jyl Josephson, to name just a few) argue that in our culture, marriage is the epitome of citizenship. Maybe it shouldn't be, and I'm very sympathetic to Nancy Polikoff's concerns about the undue centrality of marriage. But for the forseeable future, it is. And so one way to think about what the Vermont Legislature has just done is to say that it has finally accorded full citizenship to LGBT people, becoming only the second legislature in the nation to do so (behind California) and the first to override a governor's veto.

The right to civil marriage does not end the problems faced by LGB and T people, of course. But it's a heckofa step in the right direction.

VT Becomes the 4th State in the Nation to Embrace Marriage Equality!

ellen@bilerico.com (Ellen Andersen) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:02:00 -0500

Woo hoo! By my count, the vote was 100 to 49.

This just in: Vermont Senate Overrides

ellen@bilerico.com (Ellen Andersen) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:15:00 -0500

The Senate took about 10 minutes to override Gov. Douglas' veto. The vote was 23-5. The Senate then voted to suspend its rules and message the bill over to the House. Let the games continue...

VT Gov. Vetoes; Override Attempted

ellen@bilerico.com (Ellen Andersen) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:30:00 -0500

Things are moving fast up here in Vermont. As expected, Gov. Douglas (R) has vetoed the marriage equality bill, and will return it to the Senate for an override vote this morning. The Senate is expected to override the Governor's veto immediately and then send it over to the House. As I understand it, the House will immediately take up the bill. Unless something else gets in the way, the fate of the marriage equality bill may well be known before noon Tuesday. It's going to be c.l.o.s.e. Prior to the veto, 96 members of the House had voted in favor of marriage equality. We need the votes of 2/3's of the members present to override the veto. That means we need 100 votes if everyone is there, fewer if some members are absent.

Vermont Freedom to Marry will be live streaming the proceedings in the House, and I'll update here as soon as the vote takes place.

And in another sign of the coming apocolypse...

ellen@bilerico.com (Ellen Andersen) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 13:00:00 -0500

Sweden's Parliament voted overwhelmingly (261-22) this week to eliminate the legislative distinction between same-sex and opposite-sex relationships. Starting May 1st, same-sex couples will be permitted to marry legally, rather than enter into a registered partnership. The law does allow clergy to opt out of marrying same-sex couples if they so choose.

Since the Swedish Lutheran Church (the biggest denomination in the country) is supportive of domestic partnerships but not marriage, it seems to me that most churches will still effectively be closed to same-sex couples. But still. We can add one more entry to the growing list of nations that have embraced marriage equality.

More Marriage Equality News from Vermont

ellen@bilerico.com (Ellen Andersen) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:30:00 -0500

This just in: the Vermont House Judiciary Committee passed S.115 (the marriage equality bill) out of committee by a vote of 8-2. The full House is scheduled to cast its first vote on the measure this Thursday and I'd be very surprised if it didn't pass.

The Senate has already passed the legislation. Since the Governor has promised to veto the bill, the question of the day is whether we've got 100 votes (two-thirds of the 150 member House). And that's really an open question at this point. So stay tuned...

California, redux? Vermont Governor to veto gay marriage

ellen@bilerico.com (Ellen Andersen) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:30:00 -0500

Vermont's Republican Governor, Jim Douglas, announced in a press conference earlier today that he'll veto a marriage equality bill if it passes the legislature (as it looks likely to do). When Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed marriage equality in California, his justification was that the California courts should decide the issue rather than the legislature (which, I've got to add, just seemed really bizarre to me). Douglas' justification for vetoing the bill is the standard "marriage should be between a man and a woman" shtick. His justification for announcing his veto in advance (thereby violating his own policy of not making veto threats) is that speculation about his position is diverting attention from the "issues that matter most to Vermonters: growing our economy and creating more jobs."

Of course, he's creating a distraction by announcing the veto threat, but that logic apparently escaped him. My reaction as a (newly-minted) Vermonter is unprintable. While I'm pretty sure the bill will pass the House, I have no idea whether it will do so with a veto-proof majority (it's got a veto-proof majority in the Senate already).

I've included Douglas' full statement after the jump.

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Vermont Takes Step Toward Marriage Equality

ellen@bilerico.com (Ellen Andersen) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:30:00 -0500

This just in: early this morning, Vermont's Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to support S. 115, which would permit same-sex couples to marry in Vermont starting on September 1st. The full Senate is expected to vote on the bill Monday.

It's still got a long way to go. It needs to pass the House, of course, and then make it through the Governor's office. I'd put my money on that being the most likely sticking point. Governor Douglas has indicated that he's not interested in signing the bill if it comes to his desk, but he also hasn't said that he intends to veto it. The bill might well become law without his signature.

On a related note, I attended the very crowded public hearing on S. 115 earlier this week and being the geeky academic that I am, I spent the hearing writing down all the various arguments and rhetorical tropes employed by the witnesses. I'll blog on that once I've had the chance to digest it a little bit.

Marriage Equality News from Vermont

ellen@bilerico.com (Ellen Andersen) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 14:30:00 -0500

All hail from the wonderfully snowy Vermont! I've been AWOL from Bilerico ever since my move this summer (sorry Bil and Alex!), but I'm back with some pretty exciting news to report.

Yesterday, a marriage equality bill (H. 178) was introduced into the legislature here. At the moment, it's got 59 House sponsors (none of them Republican). That makes it only 16 votes shy of a guaranteed win in the House. And at least a few Repubs have indicated that they'll vote for the bill when and if it comes to the floor.

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Excerpt from my Letter of Resignation

ellen@bilerico.com (Ellen Andersen) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:00:00 -0500

After living for more than a decade in Indiana, my partner and I are pulling up stakes and moving to Vermont this summer. We're both taking positions on the faculty at the University of Vermont. We hadn't been planning to move, but when the opportunity arose, we realized we couldn't turn it down.

This excerpt from my letter of resignation explains why we're leaving IUPUI, even though we love our jobs and the life we've built here in Indianapolis:

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The Reasoning of the CA Supreme Court

ellen@bilerico.com (Ellen Andersen) — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:30:00 -0500

OK, two hours and 120 pages later, I'm back with a quick summary and analysis of the majority decision in the California marriage cases. I'll post on the concurring/dissenting opinions later.

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