MATTHEWS: I want to find out what the difference is between a civil marriage -- everybody wants a civil marriage. what's the difference between a civil union as described by Vermont law that you signed and a civil marriage? What's the difference?It seems to me that if the only reason for creating the separate category of civil marriage is to attend to the feelings of “pretty religious” people who “felt that marriage was a religious institution,” that this is a violation of the Establishment Clause. Where is the secular purpose for restricting the the term marriage at the point in time when a legislature creates a civil union law? The assertion is that the separate category amounts to nothing at all, that gay couples receive all that matters, but how can the word marriage be both “very important” to people who oppose gay marriage and nothing at all to people who want it?
DEAN: The bill actually says marriage is between a man and a woman, but -- or and same-sex couples may enter into a civil union and, therefore, have all the same legal rights as people who are married, including hospitalization, insurance rights, inheritance rights. There is no inequality of rights in the state of Vermont. We chose not to do gay marriage because there were many people who felt that marriage was a religious institution, and churches ought to be able to make their own decisions about who gets married and who doesn't. But we felt it was really important to do equal rights under the law for every single American, and Vermont is the only state in the country where everybody has the same rights as everyone else.
MATTHEWS: For all practical purposes, whether it's Vermont or New Mexico, is there any difference between civil union and civil marriage? For practical reasons.
DEAN: Well, in terms of legal rights, no, there is not.
MATTHEWS: So why are we quibbling over a name?
DEAN: Because marriage is very important to a lot of people who are pretty religious.
(By the way, I retrieved this transcript from Lexis, and it showed that last sentence as spoken by Matthews, but rechecking Tivo, I’m certain it was Dean (which makes me worry about all of the times I’ve relied on transcripts I’ve found in Lexis).)
Ann
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Ann Althouse
Robert W. & Irma M. Arthur-Bascom Professor
University of Wisconsin Law School
976 Bascom Mall
Madison, Wisconsin 53706
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