Civil Revolt: Vermont stands up - "take back Vermont" movement

National Review, Oct 9, 2000 by Stanley N. Kurtz

A conservative could be forgiven these days for feeling a little discouraged by the battle over gay marriage. All summer long, gays from around the country have been heading to Vermont to get "C.U.ed" (joined in "civil union"); in September, the Netherlands became the first country to legalize same-sex marriage. Depressed? Don't be. A grassroots campaign to "take back Vermont" has swept across the Green Mountain State-a drive poised, not only to repeal or scale back Vermont's civil-unions law, but to return the only state with a Socialist representative in Congress to its conservative roots. And there is every reason to believe that what's happening now in Vermont might soon be repeated in states across the country.

A decade of leftist dominance has turned Vermont into a window onto the future of the culture wars. Once Ben and Jerry and their aging hippie friends settled on Vermont as a refuge, the state became a proving ground for utopian social experiments. Of course, the annoyingly conservative native Vermonters had to be circumvented somehow. Enter the state's supreme court-the liberal weapon of choice for disposing of irksome majorities.

In 1997, in a state with a 300-year tradition of government by town meeting, the court declared that local responsibility for schools was unconstitutional, thus forcing the legislature to pass Act 60, a statewide property-tax and school-funding system. Now all Vermont school districts are equal-equally poorly funded. The school system as a whole is beset by severe financial shortfalls and mediocre student performance.

But Act 60 set a precedent. The court could now simply discover some hitherto-unknown right within the state constitution, and presto: The legislature would be forced to create yet another leftist social experiment. Conservatives started calling the court the "Five Supreme Legislators." They lived up to that name last December when they discovered in the Vermont state constitution what amounted to a right to gay marriage. Acting on orders from the court, the legislature rushed through a bill on civil unions, in blatant disregard of overwhelming opposition by town meetings across the state.

It was a classic case of "progressive" social engineering, but this time, things have not gone according to plan. A genuine grass-roots movement to "take back Vermont" has sprung up, dedicated not only to reversing course on civil unions, but to combating the judicial and legislative contempt for public opinion that has governed the state for the past half-dozen years. Thousands of homes throughout Vermont now display "Take Back Vermont" signs, and websites like Take It to the People, tbvt.org, and Vermont Speaks are flourishing.

Despite fierce opposition from the press, the take-back-Vermont movement appears to be winning. In last week's primary election, five of the Republican legislators who voted in support of civil unions-half of those targeted-were defeated. And Ruth Dwyer, a strong civil-unions opponent, handily won the Republican nomination for governor. But the bare results only begin to tell the story of what looks increasingly like a political earthquake.

For take-back-Vermonters, the civil-unions bill was the final insult. Many who were disgruntled by Act 60 three years ago-but didn't bother to vote-have now been propelled into action. In many towns, pre-election new-voter registration as much as quintupled. Turnout in the Republican primary was among the highest in 50 years. Marion Milne, one of the Republican supporters of civil unions, was swamped by the influx; she came in third, with only 18 percent of the vote. The magnitude of the defeat of the pro-civil-union legislators is all the more impressive in light of the campaign that was waged to convince Democrats to vote in support of the targeted Republicans in the open primary. Of course, this was only a primary; but some political analysts are optimistic about defeating supporters of civil unions in November. They are speculating about a turnover in the legislature of between 10 and 30 percent.

But even a sweeping victory for the opponents of civil unions would leave complications. There's still the problem of the Vermont supreme court's mandate. A constitutional amendment would solve things, but the amendment process in Vermont is cumbersome. The legislature could simply defy the court and repeal civil unions, but the court has threatened outright legalization of gay marriage in that case. The definition of civil unions could be broadened by eliminating the incest provisions, turning a civil union from de facto gay marriage into a special state-sponsored partnership for any roommates or family members, even those not in a sexual relationship; but that would only dilute the institution of marriage in a new way. That leaves the option of impeaching the judges. Vermont could be an interesting place to be over the next few years.

The chances are good that Dwyer, a staunch opponent of civil unions, will win the governorship. Howard Dean, Vermont's once-popular Democratic governor, got himself into a great deal of trouble when he signed the civil-unions bill behind closed doors. "Howard the Coward" signs now dot the landscape, and his approval rating has sunk from 63 percent to 41 percent. In 1998, Dwyer won 41 percent of the vote against Dean-but then she was unknown, and didn't have the civil-unions issue.