The Marrying Kind

Karen Kunz and Angela French had both been married once before, to men. Last month, after running the Boston Marathon, Kunz, 45, a nurse from Chandler, Ariz., and French, 42, a graduate student, made a symbolic pilgrimage to Vermont to wed each other. Tears streaming down their faces, the women, who have known each other for 18 years, exchanged rings; the Rev. Peter Denny proclaimed their union "the equivalent of marriage." That may be true in Vermont, but Arizona, where Kunz and French live with their nine-year-old daughter, doesn't recognize same-sex unions. They made the trip, says French, "because we wanted people to know how much it means for gay couples to get this kind of support."

One year ago, Vermont became the first state in the nation to recognize civil unions between two people of the same sex: marriages in virtually every legal respect but name. Kunz and French are among the 3,000 gays and lesbians who have come to Vermont since then to tie the knot. When the law was adopted, Vermont became the focus of a national debate over gay marriage. Opponents warned that it would become "a gay state" and that same-sex marriage would sweep the country as homosexuals in other states demanded the same rights.

None of that has happened. Instead, Vermont is enjoying a modest boomlet in gay tourism: 80% of the 2,000 gay civil-union licenses granted so far have been issued to out-of-state residents. (In that time, about 5,000 traditional marriage licenses have been granted.) Inns and B and Bs advertise civil-union packages on gay and lesbian websites. At the Moose Meadow Lodge in Waterbury, couples willing to pay $1,850 get two nights' accommodation for eight people, breakfast and the use of the pond meadow for their civil union or reception. K.C. David, CEO of an online concierge called gayweddings.com , has booked travel arrangements for couples from Russia, Indonesia and Australia who are planning civil unions in Vermont in the coming months. "It's snowballing," he says.

In economic terms, it's barely a snowflake. The gay and lesbian couples coming to Vermont to wed are but a tiny fraction of the 4 million visitors the state attracts each year. What's significant is that in some Vermont towns, civil unions have become a part of the fabric of everyday life. In Brattleboro, a bucolic community of 12,000 residents in liberal southern Vermont, there were 292 civil unions from July to December 2000--the same number as there were straight marriages for the whole year. Even the Chamber of Commerce is a one-stop referral service. Along with the standard literature extolling the town's virtues, visitors get a list of gay-friendly B and Bs, florists, restaurants and justices of the peace.

Brattleboro is one of Vermont's more liberal enclaves. Conservative farming communities, by contrast, saw a ferocious backlash shortly after the law's passage. Thousands of TAKE BACK VERMONT signs sprouted on lawns. Half a dozen town clerks quit rather than grant licenses to gay couples. Five state legislators who supported civil unions were defeated at the polls. But other civil-union proponents, such as Governor Howard Dean, survived, and the Take Back Vermont campaign eventually fizzled. Efforts by opponents to overturn the law have failed.

Nationally, the battle over gay marriage continues. Earlier this month, seven gay and lesbian couples in Massachusetts filed a lawsuit for the right to marry. So far, more than 30 states have passed "defense-of-marriage laws," which state that same-sex unions sanctioned elsewhere are null and void. Yet even though the licenses are worthless in their home states, for many gay couples making it legal in Vermont is better than nothing at all. "You wait all your life for something like that," says Vivienne Armstrong, a nurse from Dallas who has been with her partner Louise Young for 30 years. "We would have crawled to Vermont."

For some, marital bliss may be short-lived. No one in Vermont has yet filed for dissolution, but town clerks and local attorneys are already getting calls asking how to terminate a civil union. As it turns out, that's harder than getting hitched. Though residency isn't required for a civil union, it is to get out of one. That's a six months' stay in Vermont for at least one partner. But couples in the throes of marital bliss rarely bother to read the fine print.