Saturday, April 26, marks a quarter of a century since the signing of Vermont’s first-in-the-nation civil unions law, which extended the rights and benefits of marriage to same-sex couples. Seven Days doesn’t typically commemorate anniversaries, but our editors thought this one was noteworthy.
For starters: Each branch of state government was engaged in this process — from the legal ruling to debate and action in the Vermont legislature — in a real-time demonstration of democracy. It’s a textbook-worthy civics lesson.
And it heralded a shift in public opinion. In 2000, according to Gallup, 62 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage. Today, nearly seven out of every 10 approve of it.
That reversal didn’t just happen on its own: Advocates and opponents of gay marriage clashed repeatedly in the 1990s and 2000s, with the pro-gay marriage movement changing hearts and minds along the way. By 2015, when the U.S. Supreme Court made gay marriage the law of the land, a majority of Americans already supported it.
Vermonters played a crucial role in laying that groundwork, and most of the key figures are still alive and able to reflect on it. John Edwards, the Franklin County Republican who lost his House seat after voting for civil unions, is 82 now. As he told staff writer Mary Ann Lickteig, not a day goes by that he doesn’t think about that time.
Mary Ann spoke with sources on all sides of the debate, weaving their stories into an eight-part narrative; it weighs in at more than 7,000 words. For me, the most powerful parts of her “From This Day Forward” cover story are the passages describing how ordinary people summoned the courage to do what they thought was right in the face of fierce opposition.
But I’m a biased reader — civil unions affected me personally.
I was 25 in spring 2000 and had just moved into an apartment with my girlfriend, Ann-Elise. She encouraged me to stop working odd jobs and organizing poetry slams and get serious about my future. I saw an ad — in Seven Days — for residential staff at Rock Point School, a small boarding high school in Burlington. The full-time position didn’t pay much, but it came with great health insurance and a rent-free apartment.
The only catch: For a partner to move in with me there, we’d have to be married — or civil unioned.
Though Ann-Elise and I had been dating for two and a half years and were serious about a future together, we’d never discussed getting civil unioned or even having a commitment ceremony, which were the only options for gay men and lesbians back then. We asked ourselves: Should we get hitched to land this apartment?
We did the math. If we lived at Rock Point, we could save for a down payment on a house. Ann-Elise, who worked as an apprentice at the Intervale Community Farm, could get on my health insurance and start her own farm.
We debated for a few weeks and decided to go for it. With little money and just six weeks to plan, we threw together what turned out to be a perfect party over Labor Day weekend, before the students returned to school. We had a private ceremony, with a friend who was a justice of the peace, and invited everyone we could think of to our reception. In lieu of gifts, we asked guests to bring a dish to share.
My supportive new employers let us host the potluck in the school library. Most of the 100 or so guests were locals, but family members and friends who made the trip from Michigan, North Carolina and Massachusetts got to bunk in the dorms.
What everyone remembers about the party: There was plenty of food. Everything was delicious. The lesbian couple who owned Maggie’s Tomato Patch brought a giant bowl of heirloom cherry tomatoes. Other friends contributed a batch of very potent homebrewed beer. My accordion teacher and his klezmer band supplied tunes.
This was the first civil union party anyone there had been to, and it felt like we were inventing a new celebration on the spot.
At some point, our Jewish friends organized a hora. When a group of revelers sat me down and hoisted me and my chair into the air, I was surprised and slightly terrified. I smiled and laughed but held on tight — good preparation for the uncertain road ahead. We didn’t know if the federal government would ever recognize our union, or how we’d manage to have kids, or even whether I’d like my new job, which I hadn’t started yet.
Happily, for Ann-Elise and me, the past 25 years have included two houses in Winooski, two kids, five dogs, three great years at Rock Point, one farm (now closed) with 300 chickens, a career at Seven Days for me, a nursing degree and hospital job for her, and, in 2010, an actual marriage license.
One year after the civil unions law was enacted, we gathered on the Statehouse lawn alongside other civil unioned couples. A group photo ran in the Burlington Free Press on April 26, 2001. We were and still are grateful for the chance to be part of history.
Tell us your story
How did civil unions affect your life? Share your memories at sevendaysvt.com/civil-unions. We’ll publish some of them in a future issue.
This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2025.
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