Per today’s Rutland Herald:
When Republican state Sen. Kevin Mullin voted to support same-sex marriage in 2009, some of his supporters in Rutland County vowed to get revenge at the polls this year.
“This isn’t about moving on,” said Steve Cable, a Rutland resident opposed to same-sex marriage, shortly after the April 2009 vote. “This is about getting even.”
Opponents of same-sex marriage had nearly a decade to oppose civil unions, the 2nd class-citizen equivalency unit we received in 2000. The bigots got their retribution the next year, doing major damage to some supporters of civil unions through primary challenges.
This time, not so much so.
There’s something that happens when you make dire predictions and noise about calamity that fail to manifest. You lose your power. You lose your relevancy. You become a joke.
You had your grace period. We gave Vermont time to get comfortable with same sex couples receiving some state recognition. That time is over. No one cares. Everyone’s moved on. There are more important things for us all to deal with than whether or not some lesbian couple in the Northeast Kingdom needs your permission before they can marry.
Or, as the Herald reports:
Mullin said there was some opposition to him during the race because of his same-sex marriage vote, although the crowd that tried to unseat him was “very small and not very organized,” he said.
The wrong side of history is a very lonely place to be.
And it’s people who make history. Lots of folks worked very hard. Lots of folks learned a lot. And, in the long run, it’s better to be for something than to just be against something. As Emile de Becque said in South Pacific “I know what you’re against, what are you for?”
And I am grateful that people who love to stir the pot with divisive energy eventually turn the rest of the people off.
I honor the brave souls who fought so hard and persistently for these rights!
In today’s NY Times, Ken Mehlman, former Bush campaign manager, RNC chairman, and leader of the push for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, has now acknowledged that he is gay!
It is our efforts that gave him that room to live openly and honestly, and he owes us, not just for the damage he caused to society with his dishonesty, but for the space we created for him!
The right brings us back to behavior patterns we’ve been trying to shed for thousands of years.
The left looks to the past to get our bearings, so we can all move away from the ugly side of our history, and go on together to a brighter future.
that reminds me why I choose to live here in Vermont and nowhere else.
Younger generation is comfortable with homosexuality, even in the GOP (see Megan McCain). The old guard refuses to change, as is natural I guess, but demographics are against them.
But also note that in the wake of CUs, some of those who lost their bids because of their vote were able to come back after the passions died down. So it was clear once the dire predictions of hellfire (seriously, I got mailings that told of God’s wrath on Vermont) were false, people just allowed this as the new normal. Marriage equality was just a logical extension.
I think it’s interesting how this did illustrate incrementalism can work, even with “separate but equal” and “justice delayed is justice denied.” CUs broke the ice nationally, allowing MA to take the full plunge, then in the same year we had several states follow suit. I wonder if the Leg had tried to pass full marriage equality if the effort would’ve failed outright, or passed but then been rejected the following session in a GOP backlash.
Dunno, but it’s worth thinking about. Some struggles are generational. May we see a similar evolution with healthcare reform…
An admitted homophobe has an excellent chance of being the next governor.
Beaudry, running on Dubie’s ticket, used to make a living gay-bashing.
You know Dubie wants to steer clear of this issue – he’s running a ‘centrist’ flag-wavin’ campaign, but doesn’t want to have to answer for his anti-gay creds.
Seriously, I wonder if Dubie’s handlers have decided to pay Beaudry to keep his damn mouth shut? Say $10K just to STFU?
(Are you reading this, Mr. True North? Make some bank off of this.)
Beaudry’s a whore for the GOP, good thing for them he is cheap cheap cheap.
Alas, Sir Peter is too nicey-nice, too Vermont way to draw Beaudry out from under the rocks, and make the GOP’s liplock on the asses of Duhmerica’s homophobes a campaign issue.