FN 1787: PLANET OUT ON GABBARD'S VERMONT LETTER
Martin Rice
Mahalos to Clint, Cyndi & Lee for the "heads up" . . .
Wednesday April 21 12:33 AM ET
OH Funds HI to Lobby in VT
Ohio opponents of same-gender marriage have given $40K to their
Hawai'ian counterparts for a letter campaign to voters in Vermont,
where a state Supreme Court case is pending.
Mike Gabbard is getting big-time now. Fresh from starting a New
Zealand chapter of his Stop Promoting Homosexuality International, the
Hawai'i anti-gay campaigner has now been funded by an Ohio group to
lobby Vermonters against legal gay and lesbian marriage. The
Cincinnati-based Citizens for Community Values of Ohio shelled out
$40,000 to send an open letter from Hawai'ians -- Gabbard, that is,
wearing his hat as chair of Alliance for Traditional Marriage Hawai'i
-- to each and every resident of Vermont (which luckily for them has a
relatively small population), encouraging Vermonters to contact their
own state's anti-marriage group, the Burlington-based Take It To the
People. There's a heavy irony in Gabbard taking part in this
particular campaign, after all the loud complaints i! n Hawai'i about
mainland groups' involvement in the same-gender marriage issue there.
Obviously the citizens of Vermont have little to say about what their
state Supreme Court will decide in the current lawsuit brought by
three gay and lesbian couples seeking marriage licenses -- indeed,
despite Gabbard's declaration of victory, Hawaii's own state Supreme
Court has yet to issue its final word on the similar 1993 lawsuit
there (Baehr v. Miike). But Vermonters do at least have the option to
lobby for a measure now in their state legislature to explicitly
prohibit same-gender marriages.
The letter says, "We believe that traditional marriage, between one
man and one woman, richly benefits our society. We believe that
traditional marriage provides the best place to raise and nurture our
children. We have successfully defended Traditional Marriage in
Hawai'i. We wish you the same success in Vermont." The successful
defense referred to here is the ballot initiative passed by a large
margin in November, to authorize the Hawai'i state legislature to
amend the state constitution to restrict legal marriage to one man and
one woman (something Hawai'i had already done by statute). Alliance
for Traditional Marriage was one of several religious right groups
which led the campaign for that ballot measure.
Gabbard told reporters that the letter "will make people more aware of
this issue, and hopefully spark some interest with a grassroots
effort. That's how we won in Hawai'i." (That and a seven-figure sum of
contributions from national religious right groups.)
Yet according to a Reuters report, the flyer thus far has primarily
sparked mainstream politicians to speak up for the other side, naming
Democrats Vermont House Speaker Michael Obuchowski and Lieutenant
Governor Doug Racine.
Take It To The People's President Mary Schroyer issued a statement
saying, "The letter from Hawai'i rightly focuses Vermont's attention
on this important national issue now before the [state] Supreme Court.
If same-sex marriages are legitimized in Vermont, 18 other states will
be compelled to recognize their validity. Vermont would become a
center for same-sex marriages both nationally and internationally."
Presumably those "18 other states" are the ones which have yet to
enact explicit prohibitions against legal recognition of same-gender
marriages another state may someday perform. In fact, even they
have already been empowered by the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage
Act (DOMA) to choose to ignore another state's gay and lesbian
marriages -- at least until such time as some same-gender couple is
able to legally marry in one state, have that marriage ignored in
another state, and convince a federal court to strike DOMA down for
violating the national Constitution's "full faith and credit" clause.
Meanwhile, Vermont's own version of DOMA, introduced by state
Representative George Schiavone (R-Shelburne), has 57 co-sponsors but
is not expected to be considered in the current session. It's more a
hole card in preparation for the possibility that the state Supreme
Court refers the marriage question back to the legislature.
It's also a little curious that a Cincinnati group is funding the
Vermont anti-marriage activity. Back when Cincinnati's own Issue 3 (to
prohibit civil rights protections from discrimination based on sexual
orientation was on the 1993 ballot), the overwhelming majority of
funding for the "yes" campaign came from out-of-state. Issue 3 finally
went into effect last year, when a federal appellate court upheld it
for a second time and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take it up.
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