The XX Factor: What women really think.

Same-Sex Marriage in Vermont?

Speaking of another kind of freedom, last week, the Vermont Senate has passed a bill that would enable same-sex couples to marry, and not just get civilly unionized (civilly united? civilized?).The Vermont House is expected to pass the bill this week. The governor says he'll veto it—despite a survey showing that 55 percent of Vermonters are in favor, a few percentage points more than last year. No one knows whether there will be enough votes to override his veto. If the bill passes, Vermont would be the third American state with full marriage rights for same-sex pairs—and the first to have successfully done it via the legislature. (The California legislature passed marriage bills twice, but everything in California ends up in the initiative process and in the courts ... more details here.)

I am sure that some of you thought that civil unions and marriage were functionally equivalent. Not really. Vermont public radio interviewed me yesterday about the difference between civil unions and marriage, the hilarious history of marriage, the hard-fought and incremental gender-neutralization of marriage law over the past 150 years, and why same-sex couples belong today. Listen here, if you have a couple of extra minutes to kill.