Civil Wars: A Battle for Gay Marriage

Moats approaches the story from a journalistic standpoint as he describes couples who were fighting to get legal recognition of their long term relationships. With the court siding on their side, but giving the problem back to the state legislature, the storm of politics brews quickly and deeply. With the leadership of then governor Howard Dean, we see how the machinations of state government worked to churn out the only viable option at the time, civil unions.

While being very a straightforward book, Moats treats the subject matter fairly and with respect. His handling of the gay relationships, and the people stories, is respectful and honorable. He clearly has opinions on gay marriage, and yet, those opinions doesn't shade his view of the events in Vermont. If you don't agree with legal recognition of gay relationships, at least you can appreciate, by reading this book, the intense scrunity and thoughtfulness those Vermont legislators put into forming this landmark bill.

Perhaps one day, our own Congress will wrestle with the fact that its denying a group of citizens fair and legal recognition of their relationships based solely on whom they love. If that's the case, Moats' book gives us a sense of hope that fair minded people will come to the correct conclusion; that in our country, built upon espoused principals of fairness and equality, people must be afforded the same legal rights and protections offered to all of its citizens. There simply can be no other choice.


A superbly balanced account   April 29, 2004
Marissa Carter (Cody, WY, United States)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

Civil Wars is an exceedingly balanced book about the events creating the first civil union legislation for gays in the state of Vermont. Given, such a divisive subject, author David Moats does not interject his own views per se, except where his own experience adds color to the proceedings. Instead, he richly describes the history of the lawsuit that lead to the state Supreme Court decision, which placed the burden upon the legislature to remedy "the exclusion of same-sex couples from the secular benefits and protections offered married couples."

In setting the stage for the events that followed, Moats not only vividly portrays the settings and what transpired in public meetings and both open- and closed-door legislative sessions, but imbues us with a sense of how the majority of the senators and house representatives struggled to do the right thing, often in opposition to their prior beliefs and the constituents in their districts. Given the appalling abuse they took, this took courage.

One leaves this book with the impression that regardless of whether one believes that gays should or should not enjoy the same rights as heterosexuals, there are considerable numbers of people out there that don't deserve to be part of the human race, given the disgusting and obscene activities they indulged in, in order to persuade legislators not to pass any kind of pro-gay legislation.


There Are Many Heroes Here   April 9, 2004
H. F. Corbin (ATLANTA, GA USA)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

David Moats is the editorial page editor of the RUTLAND HERALD and the winner of a Pulitzer for his editorials in support of same-sex unions. This book grew out of Mr. Moats' interest in the whole gay marriage debate and the events that preceded the passage in Vermont of the historical civil union legislation. In this extremely well-written account, Mr. Moats covers all the major events that set the stage for this kind of history to be made in Vermont, that is, the three couples being brave enough to bring suit, the ruling of the Vermont Supreme Court and the ultimate passage into law of civil unions for gay people. He discusses the Stonewall riots, the murder of Harvey Milk, the AIDS epidemic, gays in the military, the lawsuit brought in Hawaii, the increase of adoptions by gay and lesbian couples, and the Matthew Shephard murder. He says in the prologue: In my view, the Vermont story ranks, not just with the Stonewall riots and the murder of Harvey Milk as landmarks of gay history, but with Birmingham and Selma as landmarks of our growth toward a more complete democracy."

Governor Howard Dean showed tremendous courage in signing the civil union bill into law. He conducted himself here as he did when he later ran for the Democratic nomination for president. He was open and frank about doing the right thing. There are many other heroes here, Mr. Moates for starters, who is not gay. Certainly the three couples who brought the lawsuit, their attorneys and other gay people in Vermont were brave beyond measure. There were also many fine and decent people in both houses of state government, who were determined to do the right thing by gay people and in so doing, several of them later lost their seats in the state legislature. Two individuals stand out for me--Bill Lippert, vice chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Bob Kinsey, a 72 year-old Republican in the House, an elder in the Presbyterian Church where he and his wife had sung in the choir for fifty-two years. Initially he was opposed to any kind of gay marriage or domestic partnership bill but was persuaded to vote for the bill that eventually passed, probably in part because a teepee on his farm that he had built as a warming hut for skaters in the cold Vermont winters mysteriously burned. He believed the fire was caused by arsonists because of his stand on gay rights. "It was the human dimension of the gay marriage bill that touched him. . . He and his wife. . . had learned something about life and love and death. No one was going to instruct him about right and wrong or the disposition of his soul." Mr. Lippert, who is gay, gave an impassioned speech on the House floor that many believed brought his undecided colleagues to his side: "There's something strange about sitting in the midst of a delibertive body that is trying to decide whether I and my fellow gay and lesbian Vermonters should get our rights now. . . Don't tell me about what a committed relationship is and isn't. I've watched my gay brothers care for each other deeply and my lesbian sisters nurse and care. There is no love and no commitment any greater than what I've seen, what I know." When Mr. Lippert sat down, Robert Kinsey rose and said that he had just heard the greatest speech he had heard in his 30 years in government. There are many other instances of quiet and sometimes not so quiet heroism here. The jackals of course came out too. The infamous Phyllis Schlafly and Alan Keyes, to name two, made appearances to spread their hate as well.

Mr. Moats in the last chapter of the book discusses some of the other significant events for gays and lesbians, The United States Supreme Court's striking down the Texas sodomy law, the ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court in favor of gay marriage as well as the decision of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, Canada upholding a lower court's ruling granting the right for gays and lesbians to marry. This book went to press too early for Mr. Moats to include the passage last week by the Georgia House-- the Senate has passed one weeks ago-- of a bill to allow the citizens of Georgia to vote in November for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage although there is already a law on the books in Georgia making gay marriage illegal. Sad to say, Georgia is not Vermont.