Haha. Despite Governor Douglas’s grandstanding the bill still passed. Vermont becomes the first state where the legislature successfully passes full marriage equality without intervention of the courts.
Now the time has come to run that clown of a Governor out of office come 2010.
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/w…
Vermont has become the fourth state to legalize gay marriage – and the first to do so with a legislature’s vote.
The Legislature voted Tuesday to override Gov. Jim Douglas’ veto of a bill allowing gays and lesbians to marry. The vote was 23-5 to override in the state Senate and 100-49 to override in the House. Under Vermont law, two-thirds of each chamber had to vote for override.
The vote came nine years after Vermont adopted its first-in-the-nation civil unions law.
It’s now the fourth state to permit same-sex marriage. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa are the others. Their approval of gay marriage came from the courts.
Congrats to the people of Vermont!
this is what you call momentum. Or, revenge of the blue states.
His entire, decades-long career of being a tremendous weenie just went pfft in one glorious moment. With an emboldened Democratic legislative majority having suddenly remembered what it’s like to actually win occasionally, and what will almost certainly be a strong Democrat on the ballot (though we don’t know which one yet), I doubt he makes it past 2010.
I knew he’d overstep eventually – it’s in the nature of every Republican to do so – but I’m impressed by how spectacularly Douglas has managed to screw himself this year, and especially on this issue. It’s like he can’t cope with Bush no longer being president and has to overcompensate by letting his own incredible dickishness show through at every opportunity. Goodbye, DoesLess, and good riddance, or if I may quote Nelson Muntz, HA-ha!
I’m very proud of my state legislature today, for probably the first time ever.
I do not support same sex marriage, but I would much rather have it made legal in this manner rather than though a court re-writting laws. I think its also the smarter thing for gay rights activists to do. With many court actions like in MA for example they may have gotten it legal in MA, but there was a major public backlash and it became soildily illegal in many, many states.
Any word on when it will officially become legal? Don’t these things usually have a few months for the marriage offices and such to prepare? Oh, and Kyle, being SSP’s ONE rational Republican, my guess would be that you would support civil union style agreements at the very least?
What a small man.
Anyways, NH isn’t far behind. The House passed a SSM bill last week. Molly Kelly is introducing a Senate version before Memorial Day. This all seems to be happening so fast. A bit surreal.
I took some time to figure out who exactly should be thanked for switching their votes and passing this bill.
-Speaker Shap Smith, who didn’t vote for the original bill for some reason.
Debbie Evans, Robert South, and Jeff Young, all Dems who voted no on the first goaround but flipped their votes. Evans had publicly stated that she’s switch her vote last week. I don’t know anything about the other two, so I’m guessing they were more cliffhangers.-Republican Richard Westman, who didn’t vote on the first bill but voted yes for the veto override. Even though he’s a Republican, he is a committee chair thanks to the speaker. Maybe he’s really liberal or maybe he got strongarmed by his buddy the speaker, but either way, his vote put the good guys over the top.
And boo to Dem Rep. Sonny Audette, who had said he’d switch his no vote but instead didn’t vote at all.
As I said on the 4/7 digest (when i should have here, sorry). And as i said there…i use to be only in favor of it if the voters passed it in a referendum but now im in favor of it if the courts rule it, the legislature does or in a referendum. I wonder what the next state will be to pass it. HI, RI, ME, MD, NJ, WA? Certainly HI and RI have enough votes to override a veto by the Republican governor. And I know ME, MD, NJ and WA are Dem-controlled in both the legislature and the Governor’s office. Maybe their Governors are technically against same sex marriage but would they really veto it like Lynch probably would? And like Douglas, a Republican, did. I did read somewhere that said Corzine wouldnt veto it if the legislature passed it. I could see O’Malley having a tough re-election but if America is 55-44 in favor of gay marriage like that recent poll says then I am sure most Marylanders support it. And im sure many who dont are indifferent to the issue.
Does anyone know of a site where I can find all the constutitional bans in one place, and how much each received of the vote in all the states. I’m curious, and I really don’t want to go to each sec of state website to look them up. lol
A passage from http://www.worldmag.com/webext… . Also thanks to Politics1 for the quote. He said: “To those on the political and religious right who are intent on continuing the battle to preserve ‘traditional marriage’ in a nation that is rapidly discarding its traditions, I would ask this question: What poses a greater threat to our remaining moral underpinnings? Is it two homosexuals living together, or is it the number of heterosexuals who are divorcing and the increasing number of children born to unmarried women, now at nearly 40 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? Most of those who are disturbed about same-sex marriage are not as exercised about preserving heterosexual marriage. That’s because it doesn’t raise money and won’t get them on TV. Some preachers would rather demonize gays than oppose heterosexuals who violate their vows by divorcing, often causing harm to their children. That’s because so many in their congregations have been divorced and preaching against divorce might cause some to leave and take their contributions with them. The battle over same-sex marriage is on the way to being lost. For conservatives who still have faith in the political system to reverse the momentum, you are — to recall Harold Hill [in The Music Man] –‘closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge.'”