Gay Marriage in Vermont

The interesting thing about the Vermont legislature’s strong vote in favor of gay marriage is that I think it illustrates that far from provoking a backlash against gay rights, pro-equality legal decisions on this front tend to drive the pace of change forward. One factor is that the more people see gay equality in practice, the less frightening it looks. But another factor is the dynamics of political leaders. This isn’t really a topic that politicians want to deal with, even politicians with progressive views and progressive constituents. They would just as soon focus on something else. But a court case smokes the politicians out, and forces the better ones among the bunch to take up the cause and do the right thing.

That, in turn, can help push public opinion forward. Once people see political leaders who they respect debating the issue, it looks like a “mainstream” topic. And when that happens, for a lot of folks basic values of fairness wind up trumping the fact that they’ve lived their whole lives with the rules being a certain way and it seems “unnatural” to change them.