Vermont clergy publicly support gay marriage

[Darth Wong]

http://www.wptz.com/cnn-news/18910412/detail.html

Vermont Clergy Throw Support Behind Gay Marriage Bill
Local Clergy Sound Off On Issue

BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Nearly 200 Vermont clergy are speaking out in favor of legislation pending at the Statehouse that would grant equal access to civil marriage for same-sex couples.

Hearings begin Monday on the proposal introduced by the state Senate leader, Peter Shumlin of Putney, that would make Vermont the nation's third state to allow gay couples of marry.

Since 2000, Vermont has offered civil unions for gay couples, a system patterned after the state marriage statute.

The Rev. Linda Maloney, an Episcopal minister from Enosburg Falls, said , "Civil unions are a good thing, but are still not equality."

Maloney joined about 25 colleagues of varying Christian denominations at a news conference at City Hall in Burlington Wednesday to voice their support for marriage equality. They released a roster of Christian and Jewish clergy from across Vermont who signed a statement of support for same-sex marriage rights, framing the issue as one that protects their religious freedoms.

"We affirm the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution," said the Rev. Johanna Nichols of the Unitarian Universalist Society. "The state can't require religious groups to bless same gender marriages nor may it favor the convictions of one group over another and deny individuals their fundamental right to civil marriage."

The event was organized by Freedom to Marry Task Force, which has also sponsored television and newspaper advertising to build public support for gay marriage rights ahead of next week's hearings before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.

Those hearings will include testimony from religious leaders who oppose the legislation, notably Bishop Salvatore Matano of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington. The diocese says one in five Vermonters identify as Catholic.

Matano told NewsChannel Five he will "respectfully" advocate for preservation of the existing definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. "We're defending what has been the normal pattern of human existence through the ages," Matano said. "We don't have the right to redefine or change the natural order."

I can totally see why the Republicans derisively consider Vermont to be excluded from "real America". Clearly, these people do not belong in the country, with all of that latte-sipping liberal "equality" talk for minorities.

[Thanas]

Things like these are the reasons why I have always preferred northern england and especially Vermont over the other american states.

[Force Lord]

Things like these are the reasons why I have always preferred northern england and especially Vermont over the other american states.

Don't you mean New England?

In any case, it's good that the Vermont clergy went along with this. We need more liberal Christians, dammit!

[The Spartan]

Matano told NewsChannel Five he will "respectfully" advocate for preservation of the existing definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. "We're defending what has been the normal pattern of human existence through the ages," Matano said. "We don't have the right to redefine or change the natural order."

Why does the bolded sound kind of familiar?

Oh right:

May we not therefore look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgment of the truths upon which our system rests? It is the first Government ever instituted upon principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society. Many Governments have been founded upon the principles of certain classes; but the classes thus enslaved, were of the same race, and in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature's laws. The negro by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper material-the granite-then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is the best, not only for the superior but for the inferior race, that it should be so.

Worthless, bigoted shit stains.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Maine is the other state in New England introducing legislation to legalize same-sex marriage. If any one of these passes, they will be well on their way to achieving marriage equality in the entire region by 2012.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

I don't mean to necro but Vermont is becoming awfully close to being the third state to legalize same-sex marriage. Let's hope the governor doesn't get in the way.

Vermont Senate panel approves gay marriage bill
By DAVE GRAM – 1 hour ago
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A state Senate committee unanimously approved a gay marriage bill on Friday, moving Vermont one step closer to allowing same-sex couples to legally wed.
"It provides ... gay and lesbian couples the same rights that I have as a married heterosexual," said Sen. John Campbell, vice chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and chief sponsor of the bill.
The measure would replace Vermont's first-in-the-nation civil unions law with one that allows marriage of same-sex partners beginning Sept. 1.
The committee's vote ended an intense week highlighted by a public hearing Wednesday night in which more than 500 people swarmed the Statehouse to speak for and against allowing same-sex marriages.
If approved, Vermont would join Massachusetts and Connecticut as the only U.S. states that allow gays and lesbians to marry.
Civil unions, which confer some rights similar to marriage, would still be recognized but no longer granted after Sept. 1.
Campbell said marriage is an improvement over civil unions both substantively and as a matter of wording.
On the first score, he said, marriage is more widely legally recognized than civil unions. If a couple from Vermont got into an accident in Kansas, a spouse likely would have a stronger claim to hospital visitation rights if they were married than if they were in a civil union, he said.
Semantically, Campbell argued that if there were no difference, opponents of same-sex marriage would not be so vehement that the term marriage should apply only to heterosexual unions. "Children should be able to say to their friends that their parents are married, and not have to explain what a civil union is," he added.
Both Houses, under Democratic control, are expected to pass the measure. The Senate is taking the lead and is expected to debate the bill next week.
Gov. Jim Douglas, a Republican, has said he opposes the bill but has declined to say whether he will veto it if it reaches his desk.
"I've made my position quite clear that I believe marriage is and ought to remain the union of a man and a woman, that our civil unions law affords equality of opportunities and rights under state law and that that should suffice," the governor said on the eve of the Senate committee vote.
The bill would exempt members of the clergy from performing same-sex marriages if their faiths forbid such unions, and would bar lawsuits prompted by such refusals.
The exemption would not extend to justices of the peace and other public officials who perform civil marriages but who might object to officiating at same-sex unions. Those people are agents of the government and are barred by law from discriminating based on sexual orientation, Campbell said.
Vermont in 2000 became the first state in the country to pass a civil unions law, which grants many of the rights and responsibilities of marriage to same-sex couples. But gay marriage advocates have argued since then that the law does not go far enough. California, New Jersey and New Hampshire also permit civil unions.
Friday's committee vote followed the panel's rejection of an amendment proposed by Sen. Kevin Mullin, R-Rutland, that would have put the gay marriage question to a statewide referendum next March. After the amendment was defeated, Mullin joined his colleagues in voting 5-0 for the bill.
The committee's action drew praise from a leader of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, one of the leading organizations supporting gay marriage in the state, and condemnation from a leader of the anti-gay-marriage Marriage Advisory Council.
"The committee was attentive throughout the week. They heard a wide range of witnesses on a wide range of issues, and I think, ultimately, they did the right thing," said Beth Robinson, a Middlebury lawyer and chairwoman of the Freedom to Marry Task Force.
Stephen Cable, president of the group Vermont Renewal, an organization that opposes same-sex marriage, said the civil unions law and the possible passage of gay marriage bill shows the state "no longer seeks to promote that each child have a mother and a father. And I think that's shameful and very sad."

[Lonestar]

I can totally see why the Republicans derisively consider Vermont to be excluded from "real America". Clearly, these people do not belong in the country, with all of that latte-sipping liberal "equality" talk for minorities.

Vermont: Where even the rednecks drive Volvos.

Yeah, when you got the only Congressman who is a public Socialist(ish) the state is already on the "Hit List" for much of the rest of the country, sadly.