http://newhavenadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:91663
Bride and Prejudice
Connecticut is poised to destroy the moral underpinnings of American society. Its about time.
by Carole Bass - November 25, 2004
The Senate's most zealous Christian conservative loses his seat to a Democrat who favors near-gay-marriage.
The Republican chief executive "supports equal rights and opposes discrimination in any form for any couple."
What planet are we on?
Planet Connecticut, 2004.
Around the country, gay-rights activists are trying to catch their breath after the gut-punch of the national elections and the fact that 11 states amended their constitutions to ban gay marriage.
But in Connecticut, the same-sex marriage movement is on the move, scoring resounding victories in this month's legislative elections. And it seems almost inevitable that Connecticut will pass a landmark law next year.
"The real discussion," says state Rep. Mike Lawlor, "seems to be whether you want to settle for civil unions or hold out for marriage."
Lawlor is in as good a position as anyone to size up Connecticut's mood on same-sex unions. A liberal Democrat from more conservative East Haven, he has long co-chaired the Judiciary Committee, where he's one of the legislature's leading gay rights advocates.
The Republicans didn't run a candidate against him this year. But the Family Institute of Connecticut, an arch-conservative group that focuses almost exclusively on the gay-union issue, did back a challenger to Lawlor. Dan McCann petitioned his way onto the ballot with a single-issue campaign: Stop those gays.
"A vote for Mike Lawlor is a vote for same-sex 'marriage'...period," read a campaign billboard paid for by the Family Institute.
Lawlor won with 80 percent of the vote.
His victory was never in doubt, although Love Makes a Family, the state's main pro-gay-marriage organization, rallied behind Lawlor to make sure.
Much more surprising was the outcome of one of Love Makes a Family's other targeted races, that of state Sen. Win Smith. The Milford Republican sits on the Family Institute's legislative advisory board and is the Capitol's leading anti-gay-rights voice.
Make that "was." He was just defeated by Democrat Gayle Slossberg. She supports civil unions.
So, apparently, might Gov. Jodi Rell, a Republican. She came out last summer against Bush's proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Back then, a spokesman made it clear that while Rell doesn't support "marriage" for gay couples, she's open to civil unions.
You remember civil unions. Four years ago when Vermont became the first (and so far only) state to allow this marriage-in-all-but-name, it was revolutionary. Opponents predicted that legislators who voted for civil unions--in order to comply with a state Supreme Court ruling--would lose their jobs that fall.
Most stayed in office. By now, a large majority of Vermont voters support civil unions. As do a majority of Connecticut voters: 59 percent in a Quinnipiac poll this June, 74 percent in a UConn poll in April.
In 2000, "those of us who supported civil unions were considered extremist," Lawlor says. "And now people who oppose it are considered extremist. It's the mainstream, middle-of-the-road position."
Too middle-of-the-road, in fact, for Love Makes a Family. At least as an opening gambit.
"We expect to see a [same-sex] marriage bill raised in the Judiciary Committee," says Anne Stanback, the organization's executive director. "Our position is it's too early to start talking about compromise, when the legisature hasn't even gone into session."
The difference between civil union and full-fledged gay marriage is mostly, if not entirely, symbolic. The federal government recognizes neither. So each arrangement would confer the same rights and benefits, but only in Connecticut and in any other state that recognizes it.
But symbolism matters. Marriage stands for full equality for gay and lesbian couples. Separate-but-equal status is not the same.
Love Makes a Family's political action committee endorsed 26 legislative candidates. Twenty-one of them won. Of those, only 11 were incumbents. In addition to Smith, the PAC helped defeat another outspokenly anti-gay marriage legislator, Rep. Bob Peters. Four seats changed hands from supporters of anti-gay-marriage legislation to people who support at least civil unions.
The PAC raised more than $50,000 from 576 donors, Stanback says, and spent more than $46,000.
By contrast, the Family Institute's PAC scored only a 50 percent success rate. It endorsed 22 candidates, of whom 11--all incumbents--won. The committee spent about $30,000, according to executive director Brian Brown.
Brown acknowledges that Smith's defeat is "a big loss" for anti-gay-marriage forces. Still, he says that he "was very pleased with these results overall."
He points out that the Love Makes a Family-endorsed candidates did not campaign on that issue. And he notes that a majority of Connecticut voters still oppose same-sex marriage.
There's one point on which Brown and Lawlor agree: Civil unions are marriage by a different name (though the name is an important difference). And if the first one passes, the goal will be to make it a stepping-stone to the second.
"I think you have a hard time explaining why civil union is okay and same-sex marriage is not," Lawlor says. "But some people are more comfortable with a step-by-step approach, and that's okay with me."
While Lawlor and Stanback say there's no chance of a Connecticut ban on gay marriage, Brown claims that his group's internal polls show majority support for that. "Connecticut," he declares, "is no different from any other state in America."
Any other state with majority support for civil unions, that is.