State of Marriage

Vermont Public Radio is doing an excellent presentation on the history of marriage equality, starting with Vermont's civil union and taking the history up to day.

What strikes me is that almost but not quite all the voices against same-sex marriage are (white) males. It is not at all surprising... I go back to Susan Faludi's Backlash that came out ten years ago in which she posits that with the loss of power, white men feel more and more threatened and strike back more and more.

When I graduated from college in 1979, we thought that equality for women would be achieved in our lifetime. We are not there yet by any stretch of the imagination but we have advanced some... but patriarchy is taking a very long time to die, which is what is going on.

You can download this report up on their website. They will be re-broadcasting it on Saturday. It is well worth spending an hour listening to this report.

From VPR's website:

Ten years ago in December, the Vermont Supreme Court changed the landscape of legal rights for same-sex couples when it handed down its ruling in the case Baker v. State of Vermont. The plaintiffs had argued that they deserve the rights of marriage, just as heterosexual couples do. In the decade since, the country has seen dramatic debate over the legal status of gay and lesbian couples, and VPR gives context and meaning to that debate in this news documentary.

Join us for an examination of how the country has wrestled with the deeply personal and very public questions of what marriage means, how to legally recognize gay and lesbian couples, and how ideas of family and civil rights are challenged by these questions.

States of Marriage examines how several states have approached legal recognition for gay and lesbian couples. We examine the divisive civil unions precedent in Vermont, and how it set the stage for a marriage law in Massachusetts. Listen as political leaders and key strategists on both sides of the question reflect on their efforts to convince voters and courts of their cause, and hear the results of that debate in California, Iowa and Maine. And learn where the debate may go next, at the state and national levels.