Dec 12, 2003  |  By: Lou Chibbaro Jr.  | COMMENTS     

With Americans engaged in an unprecedented dialogue on the issue of gay marriage, the nation’s gay civil rights groups are being asked whether they consider Vermont-style civil unions as an acceptable alternative to civil marriage rights for same-sex couples.

While praising Vermont for adopting its civil unions law, leaders of virtually all of the national gay civil rights groups have come down solidly behind demanding full civil marriage for gays, saying civil unions fail to provide the full legal rights and benefits of marriage.

“In our country, we have just one, single legal protection for families, and it’s called marriage,” said Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, a national group helping coordinate lobbying efforts for same-sex marriage.

Representatives from a number of gay civil rights groups said that benefits provided through Vermont’s civil unions law, or about to be enacted through California’s super domestic partners law, are nice stepping stones that help some gay couples now. But, the ultimate goal is for same-sex couples to be able to get married in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Wolfson, a gay rights attorney, said he’s concerned that incorrect information surfacing in the news media is misleading rank and file gays and their straight supporters into thinking a civil union is equal to civil marriage in all respects except its name. Confusion over the difference between civil marriage and civil unions, Wolfson said, could hurt efforts to achieve full marriage rights.

“Gay people should not enter into a discussion of bargaining against ourselves,” he said.

A newly formed coalition of African American gays raised the issue of civil unions versus marriage rights this week in announcing plans to launch a $100,000 media campaign promoting same-sex marriage in the black community.

“Civil unions is separate and unequal,” said Keith Boykin, co-founder of the National Black Justice Coalition. Boykin, a White House special assistant in the Clinton administration, compared civil unions to the past U.S. policies of racial segregation, which labeled mandatory all-black school districts as “separate but equal.”

“Our whole notion is you don’t go half a loaf for civil rights,” said Mandy Carter, one of the African-American gay civil rights leaders who joined Boykin in forming the black coalition.

“We don’t want to settle for domestic partnership or civil unions, not that they’re not important,” Carter said. “But if we’re going to go out and advocate, what we want is full marriage equality.”

Unions don’t offer full rights
The concept of civil unions first surfaced in Vermont in 1999, when the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that the state’s marriage law excluding marriage rights and benefits for same-sex couples violated the Vermont Constitution. The court ruling gave the legislature the option of changing the law to allow same-sex marriages or legal “unions” that offered the same rights or benefits provided by the state for heterosexual married couples.

The state legislature, faced with a highly controversial issue, chose the civil unions option, backed by the state’s governor at the time, Howard Dean, now the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The same-sex marriage versus civil unions issue surfaced once again this year when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued a ruling nearly identical to Vermont’s high court. However, some legal experts have said that the Massachusetts ruling requires the legislature to open up the state’s marriage law to full, same-sex marriage, with no legal wiggle room to form civil unions. Others have disagreed.

If the legislature fails to act by a court-imposed deadline of May 15, 2004, a number of legal analysts, including gay rights attorneys, say the court itself may declare same-sex marriage to be legal in Massachusetts and order the state to provide marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Before the Massachusetts ruling, civil unions became a hot topic in the Democratic presidential election campaign, as six of the nine Democrats running for president said they support civil unions over gay marriage. Three candidates lagging in the polls — former Senator Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, and the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York — have declared their support for same-sex marriage.

The six leading candidates, including Dean, have argued that civil unions provide all the legal benefits conferred by marriage. Dean, who signed Vermont’s civil union law as governor, has said he also favors a federal law providing federal marital benefits and rights to those joined in civil unions.

Gay rights attorneys concede that legalizing same-sex marriage in any state, including Massachusetts, would not provide with the many rights and benefits associated with marriage to gay couples that ...