Original subtitles

[instrumental music playing]

[applause]

[cheering]

[man] We bring you great news from the great state of Vermont!

Remember December 20th, 1999,

for when the Vermont Supreme Court changed

the world, as we knew it, forever.

I want to introduce you

to two extraordinary Vermonters,

Beth Robinson and Susan Murray.

[crowd cheering]

Hah!

Ladies and gentlemen,

from the bottom of my heart, I wish

for each and every one of you the exact same opportunity

for inclusion and respect

that we now have in Vermont.

The struggle for marriage equality is an ongoing struggle.

It's not over.

In the Civil Rights Movement, I saw with my own eyes

that you cannot have equality for some and not equality for all.

Everyone must be included.

Everyone must have a place at the table.

What Susan and Beth did

was

in keeping with what Rosa Parks

and others did.

[woman] One morning, I came in to work

and I read about a car accident in the newspaper.

A woman had died

and another woman who had been driving was severely injured.

And there was an 18-month-old little boy in the back seat.

And there was this horrible, insinuating kind of story

about the fact that that woman who had died

and the woman who was driving the car

were in this relationship.

The dead woman's parents were coming up

to Vermont to take the little baby.

And I just couldn't...

I just couldn't, uh, I couldn't...

I couldn't stand that.

And I represented her through the custody battles.

There were a lot of people living in this state,

in the shadows, in exactly this kind of a relationship,

outside of the purview of the law.

And because I was in the newspaper,

they started coming to see me.

So that's how I developed

a gay and lesbian legal practice, family law practice.

In the 1980's, and even into the 1990's,

gay people were under siege.

We certainly had no legal right to marry,

we had no state level recognition of our families whatsoever.

When I first started in law in 1987,

I literally saw contracts

that said a person could be fired from their job

simply because they're gay.

The whole history of our Constitution

is the story of including those

who were once excluded.

In 1996, no state allowed marriage,

and part of the purpose of the federal Defense of Marriage Act

was to invite states to discriminate against same-sex couples.

And states accepted that invitation with alacrity.

[Evan] People were losing their kids in custody cases,

people were being discriminated against,

even after years of military service.

It's difficult for people today to appreciate how recently

things were horrible.

[Susan] I first met Beth...

I think it was the summer of 1987.

[Beth] I was a brand new intern.

A summer law clerk

at the law firm at Langrock Sperry & Wool.

I saw some of the important work Susan was doing,

especially as it related to lesbian and gay families.

I quickly realized that a lot of the legal protections

that heterosexual married couples don't even think about

weren't there for same-sex couples.

Susan quickly became a professional mentor to me, and...

It was the beginning of a fast friendship.

Antonio, come on!

[Susan] Beth is a small and incredible bundle of energy

and always has been.

I've met a lot of smart people in my lifetime,

but she has an exquisite legal mind.

But she's also a blast.

She would eat nothing but Pixy Stix.

She would just eat Pixy Stix after Pixy Stix.

That was her sugar fix.

[Beth] I grew up in Indiana,

but I was part of a big, happy family.

Wonderful parents.

As a young girl, I was enthralled by Atticus Finch

in To Kill a Mockingbird.

I don't want to make too much of it,

but I think the notion of a small-time lawyer who

helps their neighbors

and can be relied upon

to do the right thing,

even when doing the right thing might make them unpopular.

I mean, what's not to admire about that?

[Susan] My parents were the epitome to me

of what it was like to be a committed married couple.

They sacrificed everything for their kids.

I knew I was... gay

probably fairly early on, as a teenager,

but that was not a time when there was even such a word as "lesbianism."

I eventually came out to my parents when I met someone.

And it was hard on them initially.

They went to a counselor, who actually happened to be a Roman Catholic nun.

And apparently, the nun told them... Asked them whether I was happy,

and my parents said, "Yes,"

and the nun said, "Then, don't worry about it."

[laughs] That was the response and so, that's where they... That's where they ended up.

Karen and I met in 1986, at our friend's house.

We were all going to sit down and watch The Wizard of Oz,

and we just hit it off.

And then we just kept talking, and we've been talking ever since.

Mary Bonauto and Evan Wolfson were

the earliest and most persuasive voices

on these questions of marriage equality.

And that was very important to my own evolution on the issue.

In early 1994,

I pulled together lawyers from around the six New England states,

to meet at GLAD, and to talk

about the opportunity that we now had

to really pursue the marriage issue.

There were people at the table who thought this was a folly.

Even reckless.

Beth and Susan clearly said there is a path forward in Vermont.

[Susan] In 1994, Beth and I set up a little workshop.

[Beth] This is for the annal.

Hello.

Hi, Beth.

Susan?

Susan, this is for the historical record. Say hello.

Hello. [laughs]

One of the questions I asked was,

"What do you think about taking on the idea

of working toward marriage for gay couples?"

And most of the people in the room said that sounds like a terrible idea.

I remember them talking about...

"We have this goal of establishing marriage in Vermont."

And there was a group of us and we're sitting there

and I have to tell you, I was like, "Marriage?

Really?"

[Susan] The only discussion about gay marriage was happening in Hawaii,

you know, what, 6,000 miles away from Vermont.

[Evan] I was co-counsel on the Hawaii case,

but, ultimately, we didn't succeed in Hawaii, and the reason was

we weren't as effective in making the case

in the court of public opinion

as we were in making the case in the court of law.

[Susan] By 1995,

Beth and I, along with about a half dozen other volunteers

formed the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force.

We had no money, and a lot of energy.

[Beth] We knew that this wasn't gonna succeed

if it was the gay community by itself.

This had to be something that...

Fairmont and Vermonters across the political spectrum embraced.

Beth Robinson and Susan Murray

had this kind of traveling roadshow.

They would go to the county fairs, They'd set up their table,

and the goal was to just tell stories.

To introduce gay and lesbian couples to people in an unexpected place.

And believe me, a county fair would be an unexpected place

to meet a gay rights advocacy group.

[Beth] Joseph Watson and another volunteer built this giant booth,

It was eight-feet high, and 16-feet wide.

It filled an entire space at the fair.

I remember sitting in the booth, kinda nervous, and I see a guy...

Dirty jeans, flannel shirt, John Deere cap, and I think, "Oh.

This is one of these hostile encounters we've been training people for."

He stops, and pauses, and says,

"My son is gay.

I love him dearly, and I'm glad you're here."

And then he turns and walks away.

And I realize

I've just engaged in exactly the kind of stereotyping

that I'm asking other people not to engage in.

And it...

It was an eye-opening moment.

[Mary] At some point, we had to decide

was there going to be a marriage case, and if so, when?

And in 1996, I drove up to Beth's home,

Susan was there,

and we sat down and talked about what would be ahead.

And we believed, all three of us believed,

that we each had something unique to offer.

I think in the early days, I was the undisciplined, impulsive one of the group.

Really? Why is that?

I don't know, 'cause people say that.

Oh. [laughs]

No, I can tell you that I felt...

I mean, I was just a brand new lawyer, and,

suddenly, I was sorta hanging out with

a giant in the movement and a giant in Vermont,

I mean, I think over time, we sorta, you know, I caught up, hopefully.

I'm not a giant, but I mean, like, equalized. I felt more like a peer,

but I think, at first, I felt like the summer intern.

You came in like, "Oh, I'm this new lawyer," and so on,

but you were on everything.

You would ask the most incisive questions, completely, like...

-Exactly. -Had analyzed everything.

So, the two of you, I just felt like, "Don't give me this."

[Susan] Mary gave Beth and I some street cred, if you would,

some credibility with the national legal groups,

'cause there might be some tendency to think

that we might be some yahoos who didn't know what we were doing.

There were a lot of people from outside of Vermont

that wanted to try to control this case,

and Mary said no.

You know, that's not gonna happen.

This is a Vermont case, these are Vermont lawyers.

This is gonna be a Vermont matter.

Mary didn't care whether Beth and Susan got credit,

and Beth and Susan didn't care whether Mary got credit.

And that characterized, I think, their relationship from the very beginning.

[Susan] We were looking for three plaintiff couples,

who were going to be rock-solid as couples,

who were articulate,

and willing to go through the trouble of being in front of the media,

and working really hard without complaint.

Ultimately, um,

the folks that we all know and love as the plaintiffs in the Baker case...

Each of them brought something different to the mix,

and each of them brought something vital to the mix.

[Susan] Holly and Lois.

When we first ran into them, they were together for 25 years already.

They'd already raised a child,

they'd done incredible amounts of volunteer work,

building for Habitat for Humanity,

riding their bicycles across country for the Girl Scouts,

very active in their church,

and they just wanted to get married.

What do I love about Lois? Wow.

She's kind, she's caring, she's gentle.

[Lois] Okay, so that's a dollar, 75...

Two dollars. 3.07 please.

Holly and I have been together 41 years, one month and five days.

Holly's my companion, my friend.

We share a lot.

How'd we meet? [laughs] Whoops!

I was teaching statistics class,

and there was this very attractive gray-haired, lanky woman.

And it turns out it was Lois, and...

We did behave ourselves.

We didn't do any, what one would now call dating,

until after the semester was over.

-This tastes good. -Yeah.

[Lois] We just decided that we would spend the rest of our lives together.

[Susan] Stan and Peter

are two of the most gentle people.

Stan's a therapist, and now actually an Episcopal priest,

and Peter's a musical theater professor.

[Stan] When I came out publicly, in mid-life,

I dated some other guys and it was fun, but it wasn't love.

But with Peter, there's something...

He radiated in his intelligence, and his maturity,

and in his innocence.

It was clear, he was deeply special.

Stan, he's very handsome, he's funny,

he's understanding.

He really allows me to be myself,

in a much deeper way than I ever really thought I could.

[Susan] Stacy and Nina brought us this wonderful energy,

and they brought their child with them, Noah.

I met Stacy doing martial arts,

which is something that's near and dear to both of our hearts.

She has a very unique way of looking at the world,

and had a strong sense of spirituality,

and I felt very drawn to that.

Nina's unbelievably sexy.

She's 58 years old, and...

I still think she blows away any woman in any room.

And it's pretty amazing to have that alive

after 23 years.

On June 17th, 1997,

Peter and I went into the Shelburne Town Clerk's office

and said, "We would like a marriage license."

And she didn't want to say no, and yet, the laws of the state

said that she had to say no.

Once the town clerks denied their requests for marriage licenses,

it was really our turn as their lawyers to take it from there.

Three homosexual couples filed a lawsuit today,

challenging a Vermont State law that prohibits same-sex marriages.

The plaintiffs say the ban violates the Equal Protection Clause

in the State Constitution.

All of a sudden, we were the center of attention.

Life got complex, if not, crazy.

I'm the pastor of the Cambridge United Church,

I've been married to my wife, Deb, for 39 years.

Yes, 39 years.

Homosexual behavior

is a desecration of the very image

and reality of who we are as human beings.

Early on, we got leaders together,

we got input from the folks in Hawaii,

we got a scope of what the battle was going to be,

we determined we were the ones that would have to be

getting together to do something about it.

Good morning. I'm Beth Robinson.

I'm thrilled to work with Susan Murray on this case,

and I'm honored to represent the plaintiffs that we're representing.

These plaintiffs want to get married.

They want to marry each other

for the same reasons that many people want to marry each other.

They love each other,

they want to make a public, legal commitment to one another.

Their lives are already interwoven

emotionally, spiritually, financially.

and they're seeking legal protection and responsibilities

that flow from civil marriage.

To Beth's right, are Lois Farnham

and her partner of 25 years, Holly Puterbaugh.

To Mary's left, are Stan Baker and Peter Harrigan.

There's a third couple involved in this lawsuit,

Stacy Jolles and Nina Beck.

Unfortunately, Stacy and Nina could not be here today.

Yesterday, their two-and-half-year-old son was rushed to the hospital

with a serious lung condition,

so obviously, that takes precedence over this press conference.

[Stacy] Noah was our first child.

He was born with a heart condition.

People called him, "The Buddha."

He was... a very old and wise spirit.

Noah died.

August 29th.

Waiting for a heart transplant.

At Boston Children's hospital...

in my arms.

They didn't know what to do with us.

They came... The man came to sign a death warrant,

and the mother's name, fine, they put that in the spot,

the father's name... and we told them Stacy's name could go there.

And he could not get that.

He could not understand that.

I literally sat with this man for at least an hour,

trying to explain to him my relationship to Noah.

And finally, a friend who was there with us, said,

"Just put her name there."

And he did.

Beth and Susan were right there with us, with Noah.

They, um...

asked if we wanted to step out of the lawsuit at that point.

And for me, there was no way I would step out of the lawsuit.

It was more important than ever to...

protect the rights of children,

who had gay or lesbian parents.

[Beth] In the December of 1997, the Superior Court issued an order,

saying that the towns did not violate the Constitution

by denying the licenses.

[Mary] So we're on our way to the Vermont Supreme Court,

and it consumed all of us.

Every day, we spent hours on the phone,

going through things line by line.

And this went on for months,

before we finally felt like our briefs were polished enough

and ready to file in the Vermont Supreme Court.

[Eve] When the Baker case came into the Attorney General's office,

we had to come up with what we thought

were plausible reasons for the legislature

to have said that marriage would be between one man and one woman,

and we came up with about six different rationales.

Normally, a brief to the Supreme Court would be 30 pages long,

and we got permission to make it longer.

In fact, our brief was over 90 pages long.

At some point, we had to make a decision about

who was going to argue the case in front of Vermont Supreme Court.

It was actually my call.

I being the senior partner.

From my perspective,

Mary couldn't do it, 'cause she wasn't a Vermonter.

And then, between Beth and me,

I thought that Beth was the better person to argue.

She's a brilliant mind,

and really had all of the constitutional law issues at her fingertips.

I felt a lot of pressure, but, um...

but I was also thrilled to be doing it.

I knew that if I fell flat on my face,

and embarrassed myself in front of my colleagues, and the community,

and the plaintiffs, and everybody who was counting on me,

I still had someone to come home to, who was gonna...

support me, come hell or high water.

But it wasn't as though Kim was home,

waiting for me with my slippers at the door,

She was in medical school and then she was a resident

and then she was starting her medical practice,

and so, we were both running around like maniacs.

[Susan] In order to get ready for an oral argument

of this magnitude,

you don't just read the briefs the night before

and say, "Oh, okay. I think I'm ready."

[Beth] We really struggled with how to put together the argument.

And I just really wanted to get away

from just the legal pieces.

I wanted to tell a story.

We gathered lawyers in Boston,

and Beth made a presentation.

And they critiqued her approach.

And they said, "That just wasn't right, there's something wrong.

It just was off."

And we drove back to Vermont,

and I have a very distinct memory of being

in Beth's living room. I think it was a Sunday night.

And she said, "How about this?"

[Beth] I said, "Susan, I want to try out something on you."

And so, I tried out this...

introduction that I had been thinking about,

and it was a story not about a same-sex couple.

It was about a court in California, in 1948,

that found itself in a very similar situation.

And it talked about all the parallels.

And it talked about what that court did.

And I just went, "That's it."

That's it. That's it. She had it.

[man] Finally, the day came. People lined up outside the Supreme Court building.

They handed out tickets to the oral argument.

The courtroom itself was full.

There were radio and television reporters from around the world.

They set up chairs in this large room outside

and they carried the video out there so that everyone could see it.

[Jeff] And the first thing that struck me, walking into the courtroom, was that

I've never seen it so crowded.

You know, there was an atmosphere there

that was unusual and extraordinary.

Representing the appellants, Stan Baker et al., is Beth Robinson.

Representing the appellee, the State of Vermont,

are Eve Jacobs-Carnahan and Tim Tomasi.

[Beth] May it please the court.

The question in this case

is not whether we in this room, as individuals,

approve of a policy that permits same-sex couples to marry.

The question in this case is rather

whether the legislature, having adopted a marriage statute

that permits only opposite-sex couples to marry,

has acted unconstitutionally.

Plaintiffs here seek a right which has never been granted

in any state in the United States,

or in any country in the world.

[Mary] To be in the Vermont Supreme Court on that day was... electric.

I had enormous confidence in Beth, we all did, and for good reason.

[Susan] Beth is so short, she had to put the little step down, so she could stand on it,

so she could be seen over the dais.

And she just started talking.

And you could hear a pin drop.

Susan Murray, Mary Bonauto, and I

have the privilege of representing, this morning,

Nina Beck and Stacy Jolles,

Stan Baker and Peter Harrigan,

and Holly Puterbaugh and Lois Farnham.

Fifty years ago,

the California Supreme Court handed down its decision,

in the landmark case of Perez v. Lippold,

striking down California's ban on interracial marriage.

The parallels between that case and this case are striking.

It's easy to sit here, in 1998, and look back

and say that that decision was an easy one.

Of course, the ban on interracial marriage was unconstitutional.

But at the time,

30 of the 48 states in this country prohibited interracial marriage.

In fact, six found it so odious that they prohibited it by constitutional provision.

Nine out of ten Americans opposed interracial marriage.

In fact, the notion of a black person and a white person marrying

was as antithetical

to many people's conceptions of what a marriage was

as the notion of a man marrying a man,

or a woman marrying a woman

appears to be to the State of Vermont today.

It was by far, the best oral argument I've ever seen.

Thank you so much to Mary Bonauto from GLAD,

to Susan Murray, from Langrock Sperry & Wool in Middlebury,

and to Beth Robinson, you rock!

[crowd cheering]

[man] After the oral argument, the justice assigned a case.

In this case, that would have been me.

We'll prepare a draft to circulate it to the other justices.

They'll be back and forth on the issues,

and that process can take the better part of a year.

We had a lot to do during that time.

Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force was busier than ever.

Susan and I, we were still working full time,

and then taking these trips on the road, and I can just remember

we got out of a meeting,

it was a week night...

It was probably 10:00, and we still had a three-hour drive home.

We hadn't had dinner. I can remember going to some convenience mart,

and not finding anything that we could stand to eat.

I just remember thinking, "Wow, this is going to be a long haul."

But, as exhausting as that was, I also thought,

"This is fun."

[Mark Candon] Vermont was an unbelievably idyllic, wonderful place

to grow up, when I was a kid.

And it's not nearly as good now.

The fourth commandment in the Catholic Church,

is, "Honor thy father and thy mother."

And that withstood

5,700 years of Judeo-Christian history.

Now, we're gonna take a step and go another direction?

Why?

Marriage is a foundational institution,

and for me, personally,

it's the relationship that I have with my wife,

and my children, and my grandchildren.

Homosexuality from a Biblical point of view

is harmful to the people, to society,

and to their growth and closeness to God.

I have heard many of our opponents

say that for two women to live together in a marriage,

the Bible says that it's an abomination.

First thing I can point out is,

if we believe everything written in the Bible,

you better go find yourselves slaves,

because the Bible tells you very carefully, how to take care of slaves.

In the same chapter where it says that it's abomination for two men to lie together,

it also says you should not eat anything on cloves,

which takes away pigs,

you should not eat shellfish, which takes away shrimp...

You should not wear clothes of mixed fiber,

which our good, normal polyester-cotton mixes would be gone.

I think love is the real message in the Bible.

And it's love at all levels.

Between the time of the oral argument

and the time of the Supreme Court's decision finally came out,

we had our second son.

[Nina] Our son Seth was born just a month before the decision was announced,

and it was wonderful that he was here.

[Stacy] He is the most extroverted human being

I think you can possibly ever meet.

I don't know how two introverts could create such an extrovert.

But he genuinely loves people.

So the Vermont Supreme Court always issues its decisions on a Friday.

I wore the same suit every Friday.

Because it's the suit I wanted to wear

for the press conference when the decision came down.

People started making fun of me because they'd see my Friday suit on.

I just switched suits 'cause the suit was really

seasonally appropriate for the winter, but not the summer.

And the weather started getting cold again,

and I went back to my old press conference suit.

It felt like a long wait.

When the Baker decision came out,

it was on a Monday morning and it took everyone by surprise.

I got a heads-up call from someone I know,

close to the court, who said, "Stand by, we've got a big decision

just about to be released."

And it was about 10:30 a.m.

And our deadline, drop-dead deadline, was 10:30 in the morning,

and I called my editors, and said, "Hold the press."

It was one of those real "Hold the press" moments.

The decision is coming over the fax line, one very slow page at a time,

and it was 80 some odd pages.

We had a press conference. We had to read the decision

in the car, while we were driving up to Burlington.

But we did stop at her house on the way, so she could change into her suit.

A decision from the Vermont Supreme Court today has moved Vermont one step closer

to allowing same-sex couples to marry.

The decision is being called the first of its kind in the nation.

[reporter] The Vermont Supreme Court says gay and lesbian couples

must be granted the same benefits and protections

given married couples of the opposite sex.

But the High Court stopped short of giving gay couples the right to marry

instead, passing the issue on to the Vermont Legislature.

Mary and I got on the phone right after we got the decision

and really wrestled with how do we see this.

Did we win? Did we lose?

The court got the "what" right,

equality, but got the "how" wrong.

Because the court threw it to the legislature.

I had to take the good with the bad, the bitter with the sweet,

and move on.

This is the first time that any State Supreme Court in this country

has not only recognized

that same-sex families exist, but, for the first time, has recognized

that they have the same needs and deserve the same protections

and rights as all other couples and families.

That's a first, that's a legal and cultural milestone.

I mean, this came out of left field, and, all of a sudden,

they find, after 200 years of the Vermont Constitution,

special rights for special people.

I thought that was a combination of craftiness

and cowardice.

And both of those made me angry.

Beth was...

devastated by the decision, because...

it was...

half a loaf.

And I was...

I was happy with the fact that we had made some progress.

[Peter] When I first heard about marriage equality,

I really thought it was not even that great an idea.

I'll be candid with you.

You know, I remember being called into the governor's office.

I was President of the Senate, Howard Dean was governor at that time,

and there was very few of us in there,

and we were reading the opinion,

trying to figure out, first of all, what it meant,

and, secondly, what we were going to do about it.

And we knew that there was a real risk,

we knew that there was gonna be huge political casualties.

[David] Senate leadership was very nervous about this.

So, they went to Governor Dean,

in a secret meeting,

and they said, "Is there any way we can delay this until after the election?"

And Howard said, "No,

we have to do this now. We have to do it."

Most people in politics never get to vote on an issue that is critical

for the betterment of the country,

and at the same time, toxic to their possibility of re-election.

When I grew up, it was common, and I did it all the time,

to make incredibly unkind and disparaging remarks about gay people.

If you had told me, that I was gonna sign the first Marriage Equality bill

in the United States of America,

I would have not only told you you were crazy,

I would have tried to kick you in the butt and beat you up.

[Kevin] The morning after the Baker decision came down,

I picked up the phone and called Beth and Susan's law firm,

and I got Susan on the phone.

I said, as any good pitchman does,

"Hi, I'm Kevin Ellis from Kimbell, Sherman, Ellis. You don't know who I am...

And you're now headed into a three ring circus.

Do you have any idea what you're about to face?"

And she said, "No,

but I have CNN on the other line, can I call you back?"

[Susan] And they offered to be our lobbyists.

And I think I told them, "Well, that's nice, but we can't pay you."

And they said, "Don't worry about it."

[Kevin] Beth and Susan were lawyers, they weren't political organizers.

So suddenly, they had to build a political organization from scratch.

I was going to a fund raiser for the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force,

and I met Beth and Susan. They were a brilliant team.

Here, you have the best legal minds

getting the gay and lesbian community playing politics.

Hardball politics.

Hardball electoral politics. For the first time ever.

Vermont was the stepping stone to all the other states.

If it could happen in Vermont, it would happen in the other states,

if we could stop it in Vermont, we could stop it in the other states.

We started holding rallies, press conferences,

and lobbying legislatures.

We risk throwing away all the things that are inherent

in the foundational unit of society.

People started calling us and saying, "How do we help? What can we do?"

We had a true grassroots rebellion

on our hands, in the State of Vermont.

We put together an ad, I guess a 13 or 15 point,

uh, kinda communist... Not communist.

Homosexual manifesto. In other words, what they wanted to do in America.

That ad ran in every paper in the state,

and people were calling me up, out of the blue,

and I didn't know who they were.

They'd even write a check for $1,500 and say,

"Can you run this same ad again?"

The eyes of the political players across the country,

anyone that cared about GLBT equality,

on our side or against our side,

was focused like a laser beam on Vermont.

[crowd protesting]

It was decided that the House would start the bill.

And so, it was assigned to the Judiciary Committee.

[Susan] The House Judiciary Committee was run by Tom Little,

who was a Republican,

and a lawyer, and a very even-keeled, great guy.

[Tom] The Judiciary Committee had 11 members, and...

all political parties, Republicans, Democrats, Progressives, Independents,

we had all walks of life, we had people from all corners of the state.

I am a father, a grandfather,

and a Republican.

I was born and raised here in the state,

brought up on a dairy farm,

then I became a State Trooper.

I retired in '92, and in '94, I ran for the House.

And then the Supreme Court decided the Baker case.

I said, "Oh, my God."

I know my district, and I know the people in Franklin County,

and I knew how they felt about this issue.

And I frankly thought I knew how I felt.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee,

depending on their political background, were either terrified,

or excited that we were taking this on.

[John] Our chair, Tom Little, began to bring in people to testify.

He brought in the Attorney General.

He brought in constitutional scholars

from both sides of the issue, from all over the country.

And then we had clergy come in.

And I gotta tell you, I'd rather deal with the lawyers than the clergy.

[Beth] Susan and I, I think, were the first witnesses

in the House Judiciary Committee.

All eyes were on that Committee room.

People were nervous.

Susan and I had the first shot at making the case.

And... I don't think I did a very good job.

I treated it like an argument before a court.

And word came back pretty quickly

that the Committee really hadn't warmed up to me.

They didn't like me.

It might have just been fatigue,

but something happened that caused me to become emotional,

and I got up and left the room.

So I made a beeline for the women's bathroom,

and a couple of the women from the House Judiciary Committee saw me crying.

Then we had a little conversation.

After that, the ice melted.

For me, one of the things I had to learn, was to engage at a personal level

and let yourself experience feelings that you don't as a lawyer.

One of the hardest times for me, and I think for Peter,

was we appeared on the website of the Westboro Baptist Church.

And under our picture, it said, "Vermont Fag Beasts."

And then there was a column of how evil we were, how we were gonna go to hell.

It's hard to be seen as evil, but I don't absorb it, I don't internalize it.

[Lois] I was working as a school nurse.

I also taught Health Education.

And two of the parents pulled their kids out of my classes

because they didn't want their children taught by a lesbian.

I think Vermont was picked by the gay movement as a good place

to push for a first victory.

And clearly we're in an era of sexual chaos.

So what's at stake, what's at stake for Vermont,

what's at stake for the nation now, is its children.

Is its future.

Welcome, Dr. Fagan.

What are some of the things that you've discovered in the research that you've done?

The intercourse between a male and female is potentially fruitful.

It gives life, and it can lead to love, marriage, happiness.

And no matter how frequently, uh...

two gay people or two lesbians come together sexually,

they can never, ever, ever

produce a child.

And there is that fundamental, common sense,

total worlds apart difference. And to say that both are the same is...

insane.

It's hard to get around

the fact that at some level,

the whole opposition is premised on

the notion that gay people shouldn't be treated as equals.

But having said that,

overwhelmingly, the folks that I dealt with in the opposition

tried to present their views

as civilly as they could.

Look hard at these images.

Pretend, just pretend for a moment,

that they're alive and they're standing here in front of you

with the full weight and authority of the Vermont Legislature.

Would you tell them that they really don't need or deserve a mother?

That they really don't need or deserve a father?

Because that's exactly what we would be saying by changing the law of marriage.

The House Judiciary Committee,

which had taken testimony every single day for six weeks,

had finally decided it was time for them to take the vote.

[Kevin] It became pretty clear that a majority of the committee

wanted to support some type of legal recognition for gay and lesbian relationships.

But there was only a small handful of us

who believed that marriage was the right choice,

or that marriage had any chance of passing on the floor of the House.

The only thing I thought about politically is, what can you get through?

And I knew I couldn't get marriage through no matter what I did.

It was just too scary for people.

It was a difficult, uncomfortable time for a lot of people in the state.

But I think the legislature is looking into their hearts

and trying to do what they think, as individuals,

is the right thing to do.

Well, the bill that we ended up calling Civil Unions

gave every right and responsibility to gay and lesbians

that heterosexual people had.

It was not full marriage equality.

But it was the first legal recognition.

I'm quite sure that the legislature will look at all sorts of models,

but if it studies the court's opinion,

and it studies what it is the court's trying to accomplish,

and what the Constitution requires,

I don't think there's gonna be any alternative

for full equality, short of full equality.

There's 150 members in the House,

you need 76 votes to pass anything.

So my partner, Steve Kimbell, did a count

and for marriage, we had about 23 to 27 votes.

So he had to go to Beth and say, "We can't win this.

Your choice is to get no bill,

or to settle for civil unions."

And that was really hard for her.

For both of them. Really, really hard.

Beth and I had to take a step away.

We actually dropped out of the State House for five or six days.

We had meetings in person

and over the phone, conference call meetings with all of the activists

around the state, who had been working on this for six, seven, eight years,

and asking them, "What do you want to do?"

Holding out for marriage meant walking away

from that legislative session with nothing,

and going back to the court and saying,

"Okay, court, we want you to finish the job."

People looked to me and Susan for leadership on this.

And Susan and I weren't exactly aligned.

Everything that the State of Vermont could give

opposite-sex couples who marry,

they gave to gay couples in the civil unions.

So I felt good.

I don't think either one of us took it personally if we disagreed with the other.

Right. Never.

-In fact, I just... -I just knew you were wrong.

There was a moment there where Beth Robinson had a decision to make.

Either she was going to stick to her strong...

understanding of the law and the Constitution

and say, "This needs to be marriage."

Or she could make a political decision,

a compromise,

and support moving forward with civil unions.

And that was an extremely difficult decision for Beth to make.

But I think it was brilliant that she made it,

and it really changed the course of American history.

She came back, and she said to Steve, "Okay, let's do it.

Let's get civil unions."

Montpelier really became quite a war zone.

Vermont became ground zero

in the battle over gay people and American life and law.

We saw all manner of anti-gay opponents

flooding the state with money, with troops,

busing in their supporters,

Don't tell me to watch my mouth while you're teaching these children

that it's okay to be gay.

That is the ultimate goal of this entire movement.

To destroy our ability to hold people accountable

for their sexual behavior.

-One, two, three, four. -Love is what we're fighting for.

-Five, six, seven, eight. -Stop the violence, stop the hate.

[man] We're gonna protect those civil rights,

and ensure that people can live together in this state,

in harmony, in love, and in peace,

as one family, the Vermont family.

Randall Terry, the famed anti-abortion crusader, came to town.

He set up a storefront a block from the State House

and let it be known that he was here

to uphold the importance of traditional marriage,

and uphold everything that traditional marriage means.

[man] Randall Terry would tell people that homosexuality was an abomination.

We must contain the poison.

He came across as someone

who was intentionally trying to instill fear in people.

And he did that to my vice chair, Bill Lippert.

Bill Lippert. He was the only openly gay member of the legislature.

So he was at the eye of the storm.

[Bill Lippert] I remember walking through the halls,

and hearing, on a number of occasions,

"Judgment day is coming, Representative Lippert.

Judgment Day is coming."

And I'd turn around, and there was Randall Terry.

One day, I get a tip.

A fellow calls me, and says...

"I know Randall Terry is in your town, talking up traditional marriage,

but maybe it's time he take a look into his own soul."

He tells me that Randall Terry had left his wife for another woman,

yet he still wore a wedding ring.

He didn't, obviously, want people in Vermont

to know that his own traditional marriage

didn't work out quite as well as he'd hoped for.

[man] There were two nights of public hearings.

At that time there were maybe 630,000 people who lived in Vermont.

And I tell you, a good a percentage of them descended on the State House.

[woman] One of the many great things about the Vermont legislative process

was that the legislature wanted to hear not only from experts and advocates,

but from all Vermonters who had a perspective to share.

There were several statewide hearings in Montpelier

where people could come to the State House and testify.

I came up for all of those.

State House was jammed. Jammed.

And at some point, I decided to leave the chamber,

because I wanted to see what was happening outside.

[man] Three thousand people showed up on the front steps

of the State House.

They are angry.

Civil unions is essentially marriage without the marriage word.

The people had been lied to, they'd been cheated,

and that's the anger you have to worry about,

'cause it doesn't go away.

[Mary] I went outside, it was freezing.

Then I walked amongst some of the people, trying to make eye contact.

And I was just overcome with this feeling of...

these could have been my neighbors, growing up.

And my family members, for that matter.

I realized when you're in a fight for your common humanity,

you cannot discount the common humanity of others.

[man] I was really troubled, experienced a lot of angst.

I hadn't yet screwed up my courage.

But I just thought...

You know, I've gotta make a decision.

And I said, I've gotta be on the right side of this issue.

And the right side is to support it.

And from that point on,

it was like a weight lifted from my shoulders.

[Holly] The day the House did their final vote

on the law for civil unions,

we weren't sure which way it was gonna go.

It was still up in the air.

We speak, and we listen to what people have to say,

we listen to the other side, we listen to what they have to say.

That's the way we conduct business here,

and shall continue to do so,

based on over 200 years of precedent.

We were all very nervous.

Even Beth and Susan were nervous.

...but I will not support the legalization of sodomy,

the tearing down of traditional marriage in this country,

by the passage of this law.

And I truly feel sorry for the State of Vermont,

that this can happen here, and for our nation, because I believe

that we are really putting ourselves in a dangerous situation

in regard to a judgment from the Almighty God. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The House was on the floor for hours. It must have been 12 hours.

And it was toward the end of the day, it must have been 8:00 or 9:00 at night

and Bill Lippert rose and spoke,

and it was quiet.

I think it's very important,

as we listen, as we debate, and as we make decisions,

that you understand what the reality is...

about gay and lesbian people...

and gay and lesbian couples.

Passing the bill that the House Judiciary Committee has brought forward

will not end discrimination,

it will not end prejudice, it will not end hate,

but it will grant rights.

The rights that I don't have right now

and most everyone else in this chamber does.

[woman] Bill's speech was amazing.

And because they knew Bill, he was one of them,

I think it really hit home.

They finally started the vote,

and Lois was keeping track, for and against,

for and against...

and we're counting them.

Soon as we saw we had enough votes,

it was like, "Oh, we can relax."

Those voting yes, 79.

Those voting no, 68.

Congratulations.

Thank you. Congratulations.

It's just an incredible day.

[Holly] It was amazing.

We could become legally connected.

We had won that step.

Gay couples in Vermont will soon get

the same rights and benefits as married heterosexual couples.

The governor is expected to sign the Civil Unions bill into law later this week.

With that signature, the Green Mountain State

will go where no state has gone before.

I think, starting today, the healing process now begins.

The passage of Civil Union in Vermont

established the principle that we could win.

That we could win something bigger than most people had ever dreamed we were gonna achieve,

state-level recognition of gay families.

The magic of Vermont, the magic of Civil Unions in 2000,

the reason why it was so historic,

was because, for the first time ever,

gay and lesbian couples, statewide, had rights and responsibilities,

and were acknowledged for being couples.

[Beth] We had every reason to celebrate,

but we weren't done.

I knew we had to keep working,

however long it took,

to get to full equality, full inclusion.

Civil marriage for same-sex couples.

[organ music playing]

[choir singing]

[Stan] Peter and I

had a wonderful civil union.

We actually called it our holy and civil union,

because it took place in the Episcopal Cathedral in Burlington.

We declare that they're united and joined to one another

as partners in holy and civil union,

a solemn and joyful covenant of love in the name of God.

Those whom God has joined together, let no one put asunder.

[applause]

[Nina] In 1992, Stacy and I, we had a ceremony that we designed ourselves.

I wore my white lace dress, and Stacy wore her tails and her top hat.

It was totally significant to us,

even though it wasn't legal.

When Civil Unions passed, we wanted to have access to those benefits and rights,

and to be a family in every sense of the word.

Our civil union was a beautiful summer day in Vermont.

Lots of friends and relatives came.

At the same time, there was an anti-civil union demonstration

on the capitol steps.

And we had more people in our ceremony than they had

in their demonstration.

By the end of today,

we will be, believe it or not, legally connected to each other.

And it's nice, after all this time, to be able to say that Holly's my spouse.

Couples from all over the country, and in fact, all over the world,

came to Vermont, little Vermont, for civil union.

[Tom] When Vermont happened, when Civil Unions happened,

we thought, "We want to be as married as two men can be in this country.

We want to be as committed to one another

as is humanly and legally possible."

When I met Tom, marriage wasn't even... There was no gay marriage movement.

I could write about it in plays, men getting married, but...

didn't think it'd be a reality.

We heard about this great inn in Vermont and said,

"Let's just treat ourselves with a civil union."

I don't think either of us fully knew

how perfect that moment would be.

"I am there for you for the rest of my life,"

is a very profound pledge to make to another person.

And it makes me feel safer,

more protected, happier,

calmer... I'm not alone in the world.

As much as I love Tom, I never had that feeling

until we stood in Vermont, in that inn, and said the words to each other.

The irony is that, it wasn't until after the law passed,

that things got really ugly in Vermont.

Something about the climate changed, in a bad way.

People who heretofore had been

unwilling, or unable, or scared to express their homophobia,

and their hatred of gay people, suddenly felt like they had permission to do so.

The focal point of LGBT equality

was going to be decided in these elections.

If the Republicans would have taken back control of the House

and the Senate, and won the governorship, which all was possible,

then it would have sent shivers across the spines

of any politician across America.

Groups sprung up all around the state,

organized around the idea of

"If we don't do something now,

they're taking the state away from our kids,

and we want our state back."

[man] We finally got organized with Take Back Vermont.

It was, you know, 24/7 pedal to the metal.

Before I knew it, we became the focus

of the opposition in Vermont.

[man] There were "Take back Vermont" signs everywhere.

Lots of them.

And the Left went ballistic.

I was in demand. I didn't want to be in demand.

I didn't want to be a leader of anything.

Just wanted to get some information out.

But we had started something, and so we were gonna see it through.

We packaged videos with other literature,

and we sent that material to every legislator

in the State of Vermont, twice.

[narrator] The battle in this country

between those holding to traditional morality

and those espousing hedonism

has reached a fever pitch.

Manifested in no clearer terms

than the ideological conflict over homosexuality.

Our view was that the only opportunity we had to try and stop this,

was to knock the engine, which was Governor Dean, off the tracks.

The major reason that I ran for re-election in 2000

was to validate what we had done with Civil Unions.

It was clearly the nastiest time in Vermont politics.

Certainly since I've been here.

I was the Republican nominee,

I won my primary, and I was running against Howard Dean.

I had run against him in '98 as well.

But in 2000, the atmosphere was far more charged.

I was opposed to gay marriage. I still am.

I do believe homosexuality is not the way...

nature intended people to behave.

There was clearly a group of people somewhere,

somehow, at, I assume, the national level.

Maybe they were international. I don't know.

There is clearly people banded together that said,

"We want to ban guns, we want to...

legalize abortion, whatever we want to do. We want to promote same-sex marriage.

How're we gonna do that? We'll form a group.

We'll find a state."

Beth and I believed that our job, at that point, was to try

to help re-elect legislators who had stuck their necks out

and had supported Civil Unions. So we marshaled volunteers,

and raised money, and did everything we possibly could.

We're here today because so many of our fellow Vermonters

had the vision

to identify one of the key issues of our time,

and the courage to stand up and act.

These people were there for us. They've taken an incredible amount of heat for us.

This is our time to be there for them.

[cheering]

People like John Edwards from Swanton

opened his heart and his mind, and he listened to the testimony

for weeks and weeks.

We've got Marion Milne,

who challenged herself to do the right thing for her grandkids.

[Marion] I was elected as a Republican,

but I voted for Civil Unions,

and since then, I've never had one minute of regret.

I loved being in the House. I thought it was one of the greatest...

and humbling experiences I've ever had.

We are asked to prove whether we are as tolerant and democratic

as we say we are.

Democratic in the sense that we are willing to recognize

the full rights of gay and lesbian Vermonters.

After the vote, many houses that I had been to,

that were very friendly to me before,

I wasn't welcome in them anymore.

One person that I knew and respected, called me up.

"I can't believe it, Marion. You lied to me.

You lied to the voters. I'll never speak to you again."

I had several people that I cared about say that to me.

[man] It was a surreal experience.

You'd knock on a door, and they'd say,

"Oh, you're the gay lover."

They'd slam the door in your face.

One in particular called me lower than well-done.

I lost, I can probably... Probably by two to one or better.

You know, and it was... it was tough.

[man] It was brutal. They got some polling numbers

that showed that Ruth Dwyer was gonna win.

And we knew that if that happened,

that was the end of marriage equality

in this country for a long, long time.

So we did lose the House, it went Republican big time,

I held the Senate by one single vote and it was very hard to hold,

and people don't remember this, but Howard Dean

won re-election by one single point in the state.

[woman] When I lost the election,

I really, really suffered for a long time because I felt I had let

some very good people down.

Now, I pretty much raise dogs, and horses, and cows,

and live on a farm.

I like to be around the animals

because they're simple,

unaffected, predictable,

and they have the right priorities.

After the election, and we all recuperated,

many of the leaders within Take Back Vermont

formed an organization that was ultimately called Vermont Renewal.

The gay and homosexual lobby is expansive.

And so, we went into the schools.

We were able to eliminate a lot of that material that was clearly propaganda.

I mean, there were six resource libraries that we had shut down.

But when they start teaching that all of these...

ways of living together are equal and the same,

and you have children involved in it,

you know, it's...

Then where do you draw the line, as the others have said?

What's wrong with having three people in this situation?

Or two people and a dog.

-Yeah. -Yeah.

You don't even understand what freedom is

until it's challenged.

It's true.

And that's when I realized how Hitler, or somebody like that, could come to power.

I never thought... I always wondered, "How could he ever come to power?"

I know now.

-Right. -Right.

[Susan] After the election in November 2000,

the House became an anti-civil unions chamber.

They started having hearings about repealing the Civil Unions law.

Beth and I had to go back and testify all over again

and it was an incredibly...

painful period.

They actively brought people into the State House

to do "seminars"

on the "immorality" of the gay and lesbian people.

Ultimately, Civil Unions was repealed on the floor of the House.

But it was blocked by the Senate.

It was a helpful reminder of just...

how hard-fought the civil union victory was,

and how hard we were gonna have to work to move forward.

[Susan] What has been wonderful about Karen,

all these years, and through everything that we've been through,

is that she's always been supportive

of what Beth and I were doing.

No matter how much time it took away from the household,

no matter how stressful it was.

Come 2003,

my practice was taking off at the law firm.

And I just didn't have the time anymore

to devote to working for Marriage Equality.

There was no energy for it in the state.

Nobody wanted to do anything. The gay community was tired.

The political class was sick of hearing from us.

And I was burned out, to be honest.

I can remember getting home at 11:00 at night.

You were gonna pick me up at 6:00 the next morning,

I had seven hours to do my day's... Of my job work.

Eat dinner, sleep--

-Visit with Kim. -Take a shower.

Make breakfast, and get up and do the same thing again.

Yeah. I wouldn't trade the years of meeting really interesting people

and traveling around and being engaged and getting to know the state

in a way that I never would have.

I wouldn't trade that for anything.

I know. But we were exhausted all the time.

[Susan] Frankly, I needed to take a break.

I dropped out of the battle.

So Beth, bless her, kept plugging away.

[Beth] As Susan's friend, I totally understood it.

As her partner in this effort, I can't deny that it was hard at first.

But Susan never went away.

She was always a source of good advice,

and she was always a friend.

And in the meantime,

a number of other really key people

came on to the scene that might not have if Susan had stayed around.

People like Sherry Corbin, who really...

was a pillar of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force for a decade.

[Sherry] I remember covering miles and miles of territory,

walking into a house and the woman in the house running up

and giving you a hug,

and then saying, "Good luck with him."

[laughing]

And then dragging her husband up

and having a real debate about it.

So the House itself was divided, but...

humorously divided.

Freedom to Marry criss-crossed all over the state,

to hold a public meeting, or to hold a house meeting, we would call them.

Then having nobody show up.

That was frequently the situation.

And we would go anywhere anybody wanted to talk.

So, number one, why marriage? Why are we doing this?

Why is this important, especially after we went through

all that we went through in 2000 to get Civil Unions?

We were hitting every spot in the state.

Wasn't the kind of work that was getting headlines,

but it was the kind of work we knew we had to do

to steadily rebuild.

And when the story that our laws tells

is a story of separation and exclusion

that affects every single one of us, gay and straight,

single and couple,

old or young,

wanting to marry or not wanting to marry.

It isn't just about the committed couples

in same-sex relationships who want to marry.

It really is about a broader civil rights movement

and a broader movement for inclusion.

I have to say that, for me, that...

That really is what this is about.

[Beth] Some of the hardest times

were those long years in between

when

getting to the goal seemed so far away and so elusive,

and the work felt so not rewarding,

but you knew you had to do it.

[man] Vermont created the atmosphere and the foundation

to have this conversation on a national basis.

I think Vermont's experience taught people

how to talk about it.

Taught people that they could talk about it.

After Vermont, GLAD moved forward with a marriage case

in Massachusetts.

Good evening. It is one of the most contentious questions in America today.

Should gay people have the right to marry?

Today, the Massachusetts State Supreme Court ordered that state to do just that.

Legalize gay marriage,

ruling that a ban on such marriages

is unconstitutional in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts became the first state in the country

to allow gay people to get married.

They did that as a result of a Supreme Court decision in that state.

And that case, that was Mary Bonauto's case.

That was her case.

She had, you know, as much as I whined about how hard we worked in Vermont,

she was carrying multiple other states at the same time.

She was doing the same thing many places.

That was huge.

Now finally, these couples, who've been together years, if not decades,

will finally have the chance

to be treated equally and fairly by their government

and have the right to join in civil marriage.

We made the same key

and core equality and liberty arguments that we had made in Vermont.

And the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court broke that historic barrier,

and found that excluding same-sex couples from marriage

violates that state's constitution.

For a four year period,

Republicans dominated the legislature, so, therefore,

marriage was off the table.

And then Democrats took over the legislature again,

and there was a glimmer of hope in Beth's eye about getting it done.

We could have gone back to court. That was one of the options we considered.

We wanted to rebut this notion,

that... people's elected representatives would never go for this,

that this was something that was being crammed down America's throat

by unelected judges.

It was important

to pass marriage somewhere legislatively,

because the opposition was saying, "Take it to the people."

The opposition was saying the only reason we have marriage is because of courts.

Nobody, no state had passed

marriage equality by legislation.

And that was our goal.

Hi, how you doing today?

My name's Tom from Vermont Freedom to Marry. Would you like a pin?

-Thank you. -You're welcome.

[man] Beth Robinson, and Vermont Freedom to Marry,

they went district by district

organizing everyday Vermonters, gay and lesbian Vermonters,

and family members, very strategically.

They would find people that went to high school with some legislators.

They would find the right religious people.

They would find the business leaders to talk to those people.

They would find donors to the campaign,

and talk to these legislators.

It was just absolutely brilliant,

and it was laser focused.

[woman] Now is the time for action.

Every single one of you who knows anyone,

anywhere in this state, you need to call them.

You need to call them and ask them to call their representative.

Because minds can be changed like that.

[Beth] In the fall of 2008, we worked hard

to try to get Senator Shumlin on board.

We knew his heart was with us,

And it was a matter of persuading him

that the politics had changed and that he wasn't gonna be

taking his caucus, taking his...

people into some fire where they were gonna get burned.

She had this determination about her message,

and as did a number of other people in the room, in fairness to Beth,

where I thought, "Wow, if this woman and this group can really do this,

we can actually get this done."

[man] Peter Shumlin knew that the House was where the play was going to be.

And so he worked very closely with Shap Smith,

who was newly elected as Speaker of the House.

[Shap] I always was interested in politics as a young kid,

but I was reignited in my interest in politics,

quite frankly, by the civil unions issue.

I saw people were willing to put their personal philosophy

on the line, even knowing that they, perhaps, were facing political danger.

I got a new faith in what politics could do.

The bill was very simple. It was a short bill, it wasn't a complex bill.

It simply said that the gender requirement in marriage

will no longer apply. That a person can marry a person.

We passed it overwhelmingly on the floor of the Senate.

Sent it over to the House, who did the same thing. We sent it to the governor's desk.

We thought for sure, to be honest,

that the Republican Governor, Jim Douglas, would sign that bill.

In all my great wisdom,

throughout the fall of 2008 and into the early part of 2009,

I had assured...

anybody who was concerned, that Governor Douglas would sign this bill,

or at a minimum, let it pass into law without his signature.

I was convinced that Governor Douglas would not veto this bill.

And I was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

As you know, it's been a policy of mine

not to announce whether or not I will veto a bill

before it reaches my desk,

but during these extraordinary times,

the speculation about my decision

has added to the anxiety of the moment

and further diverts attention from our most pressing issues,

and I cannot allow that to happen.

For those reasons,

and because I believe that by removing any uncertainty about my position,

we can move forward more quickly beyond this debate,

I'm announcing that I intend to veto this legislation

when it reaches my desk.

Our own governor stood up, called us a distraction,

and said that our civil rights weren't worthy of attention

this year, and that he would veto them.

[crowd booing]

But the task doesn't end with the governor,

the task ends right here in the Legislature,

with our leadership, with our elected representatives,

and the battle is by no means over.

An hour later,

Beth Robinson's in our door

saying, "We need a new ad in 24 hours."

And we looked at each other, and said, "Okay, we can do that."

[narrator] We are your neighbors.

Farmers, teachers, and clerks at the grocery store.

We are your sons and daughters, your parents and grandparents.

We are not a distraction, as the governor suggests.

We seek nothing more nor less than fairness for all Vermont's families.

Urge your representatives to protect civil rights for all Vermonters.

They were promoting a view of homosexuality

that would be palatable to the Vermont citizens,

and would pull on the heartstrings of Vermont citizens.

And, boy, some of their stuff pulled on mine, you know?

Suddenly we needed every vote we could get.

We didn't just need a majority in the House and the Senate,

we needed a super majority.

We needed a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the House.

Susan came back on board and rekindled some of those relationships

that she had with the legislature,

which was something we definitely needed.

[Beth] The override votes in both chambers were scheduled for Tuesday morning.

When I went home on Friday,

in the House, we had the 97 that we knew of because they were on record

and we had three people who had committed privately to supporting

the override, even though they hadn't voted for the underlying bill.

Monday, when we got to the State House,

we didn't have the votes anymore.

One of the key votes,

a member, had told some people they were voting no,

and told others they were voting yes.

And I gotta tell you, when we left the State House the night before the vote

to override, we didn't have the votes.

And we knew we were short at least by one, possibly two.

[Beth] I pretty much cried the whole way home.

It was the lowest time I think in the whole process for me.

I felt tremendously supported by Kim and I think that was...

That was the ultimate comfort through all of this.

I can't imagine...

doing this or anything, without her by my side.

Floyd Nease was the majority leader,

when I became Speaker of the House.

Floyd is and incredibly compassionate,

but forceful individual.

The morning of the override vote,

Floyd came and told me, "I just got a call

from the nursing home where my mom is.

And they've told me that she is dying,

I don't know what to do."

And I said, "Look, Floyd, your mother's dying.

There's no other option. You should go."

And he said, "I can't leave right now.

I'll leave as soon as the vote's over."

We knew that we needed every single vote.

And not only did we need the votes, we needed to have Floyd on the floor

working people to switch their vote.

But before the vote had happened,

he got a call to say that his mom had died.

And yet, he was able to come to the floor

and shore people up.

It was really incredible.

We had to make the decision to take it to a vote

without having the votes in hand.

And we determined that's what we had to do.

[man] When I came to the podium,

quite frankly, I was scared to death.

So, just as a reminder, "Yes" vote is a vote to override the veto,

and "No" vote is a vote to sustain the veto.

The clerk shall call the roll.

-Adams of Hartland. -No.

-Ainsworth of Royalton. -No.

[man] There was sort of a feeling of terror.

But you also have to stand up there and look confident.

So, I was just trying to make sure that I looked like I knew what I was doing.

[Beth] We had one vote that nobody could talk to because he was so tenuous,

and we had another vote, that we didn't know what was going on.

And I'm not gonna name names,

but I'll say that both of those votes came at the very end of the alphabet.

Which meant that we weren't really gonna know

until we got through the roll call.

-Lewis of Derby. -No.

-Lippert of Hinesburg. -Yes.

-Lorber of Burlington. -Yes.

-McAllister of Highgate. -No.

McCullough of Williston.

We had those little pieces of paper and we were keeping track

and it was extremely stressful.

[man] I had a very hard time

composing myself to read the vote tally.

Please listen to the results of your vote.

Those voting "Yes", 100,

those voting "No", 49.

A hundred needed to pass. You have voted to override the veto.

The House will come to order.

[applause]

[Beth] We'd been at it for 15 years.

And... a lot of people thought

we'd never get there in our lifetimes.

And we had. We'd done it. We won.

[man] There were people who took political risks today

because they knew it was the right thing to do.

And they have my gratitude forever.

I'm relieved. I'm overwhelmed.

We won. Veto 49.

[man] I went back to my office, closed the door and wept.

Vermont was the first state to grant state-wide legal recognition

to same-sex couples nine years ago.

Now, Vermont continues its pioneering ways,

becoming the first state to make same-sex marriage legal,

not because of a court ruling on the constitutionality of the issue,

but because the state legislature moved proactively to make it a new law.

[Cherry] There were hundreds of people that were involved

in this movement. This was not a gay agenda.

This was a human agenda.

Truth and fairness and justice and love are more powerful than one man's veto pen.

[cheering]

I do want to recognize the Freedom to Marry board.

They've been slogging away in obscurity for many years until we got to this last year,

and it's been a lot of work.

It's not the kind of board you join to pad your resume.

[laughing]

It's the kind of board you join to be driven

to the bone and then driven some more.

[laughing]

We're not done.

We're not done until every person who voted for this bill

in the House and the Senate got a thousand thank-you notes.

[cheering]

And we're not done until every person who stood up and voted for this bill

is re-elected in November of 2010.

[Susan] Marriage is a vital package of legal rights and responsibilities.

But it's also a symbol of acceptance by the state

and by the community at large.

When Karen and I got married, it meant all of those things and more.

After two dozen years together,

it was a way to finally show the world

the commitment that we've always had to one another.

We are so lucky to be alive now,

and to be experiencing these changes, and to be a part of making them happen.

Though we have come such a long way from being...

essentially entire outsiders to the Constitution,

to being slowly but surely brought in

to those promises that are there for everyone.

One of the great honors of being governor

is that you get to appoint judges.

So I went out and looked for the smartest, most capable lawyer

that I'd ever met

as my first appointment to the Supreme Court.

There is no one more fair, there's no one more capable,

there's no one with a finer legal mind,

and there's no one who is more committed to justice,

to integrity, and to doing the right thing for all Vermonters,

than Beth Robinson.

I, Beth Robinson...

Do solemnly affirm that I will faithfully execute the Office of Associate Justice.

[Beth] Do solemnly affirm that I will faithfully execute the Office of Associate Justice.

[cheering]

I'd like to think that I'm a better person

because of the amazing people

that I've had the opportunity to work with.

I think about Holly and Lois,

Nina and Stacy, and Stan and Peter,

and Susan, and Mary, and...

the hundreds of people who invited me to their living room

to talk to their neighbors.

Every one of those people made me a better person.

Anybody who's advocating...

for LGBTQ rights in any way, whether it's marriage or anything else...

and whether the advocate is gay, or straight, or doesn't embrace labels at all,

we need to understand that the human piece comes first.

People's heads will follow...

if you get their hearts.

[solemn instrumental music playing]