Equality All The Way To The North Pole?
First, today’s news is that the Vermont House managed to override the Governor’s veto. At 100-49, they just managed the 2/3 supermajority needed. The Senate was not even close. This makes Vermont the first state to institute same sex marriage by legislation; Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa and briefly California did it through the judiciary, which is one of the traditional way for minorities to get their basic rights recognized in the American system of government (the others being roughly “civil war” or “not at all”).
With Canada already on board, I dream of a day when this entire hemisphere extends legal recognition to same sex couples. We have a way to go, but in a term of a few years, the following should be achievable:
Delaware River to the North Pole:
Canada, Vt, CT, Ma, down. NH, ME, RI, NY, NJ to go. This region includes my current home, my hometown, and my mother’s hometown. I’m guessing RI will be the last to go.
Iowa to the North Pole:
Canada and Iowa down, just Minnisota to go. Land of Wellstone, you can do it!
San Diego to the North Pole:
Canada down. California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska to go. One of these may be tough.
According to the very sophisticated political statisticians at 538, the trend is in the right direction.
yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com 
I’ve been, historically, anti-marriage. Being rooted in religious and really economic (as in trading and bartering daughters) I find fixing marriage to include same-sex couples kind of like trying to rebuild the master’s house with the master’s tools. Or perhaps, instead of rebuilding, inserting two women inside that house.
I think we share the same dream though, of legal recognition. But I hope that it extends past archaic religious traditions to truly benefit everybody.
-J, the sometimes-idealist, sometimes-downer, eternally disappointed, atheist radical.
Yea… Gay marriage should be just one step towards dismantling the whole institution… Which I guess makes me one of those “extreme” advocates the religious right fear so much.