Vermont Chooses A Side

In an overwhelming vote by the Senate on Monday, March 23, Vermont approved a measure to legalize same-sex marriage. Senators voted 26-4 in approval of the bill, and the House of Representatives is schedules to vote on the bill, The Freedom to Marry Act, by Thursday, March 26th. If it passes, Vermont will join Massachusetts and Connecticut as the only states that legally recognize same-sex unions.

The issue was contended the same as it has throughout the country, with the opposition arguing the damage such a bill could have on the traditional institution of marriage. Bishop Salvatore R. Matano told The Catholic Spirit that it was a "duty to uphold and to defend the traditional definition of marriage as it has been upheld and revered over the ages", and had nothing to do with hate or understanding.

This doesn't stray far from the basic foundation of the argument by opponents of same-sex marriage. It's all about protecting the "tradition", which usually translate into "religious tradition". Every argument I've heard against same-sex marriage focused on demonizing the act of homosexuality, attacking the "unholiness", and shaming the public for supporting such "unnatural" behavior. Personally, I was getting tired of it and thought it was hurting their cause than helping. It started to sound a lot like hate speech and intolerance, reminiscent of the fight for civil rights... very ugly. But it seems just when their arguments have started to sound like a broken record, some opponents are changing their argument. Their new tactic seems to be to express that their protest is in the interest of protecting the rights of those who have chosen to practice the "traditional" form of marriage, as if by allowing same-sex marriage the state is disrespecting the beliefs of heterosexual married couples. Bishop Matano said this in his interview with The Catholic Spirit:

"The union of husband and wife is a distinct vocation and using the law to alter or to redefine marriage is an injustice to those who have embraced this state in life and negates its long history of benefit to society and the justified acknowledgment that it has received from the very beginning of history."

That's a pretty broad assumption that every heterosexual couple that marries holds the same belief as the Church.

Opposition of same-sex marriage isn't necessarily as black & white. Rarely is it a blanket disapproval of homosexuality, so much as it is disapproval of recognizing it in the traditional union of "marriage". In an article by College News Vermont's Republican govenor, Jim Douglas does protests same-sex marriage, but supports the state's current civil union law. Like many others, Douglas distinguishes "marriage" as a union between a man and a woman.

Coincidentally the bill does not incroach on the clergy's right to refuse to solemnize a marriage if it to do so would compromise the clergyperson's religious beliefs and practices. The bill works very hard to separate the the rights of a relgion to practice its beliefs from the rights of an individual.