By DAVE GRAM
Left: Sen. Richard Sears, D-Bennington, receives congratulations from Kathy Stickel of South Royalton, Vt. … "It provides ... gay and lesbian couples the same rights that I have as a married heterosexual," said Sen. John Campbell, vice chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and chief sponsor of the bill.
The measure would replace Vermont's first-in-the-nation civil unions law with one that allows marriage of same-sex partners beginning Sept. 1.
The committee's vote ended an intense week highlighted by a public hearing Wednesday night in which more than 500 people swarmed the Statehouse to speak for and against allowing same-sex marriages.
If approved, Vermont would join Massachusetts and Connecticut as the only U.S. states that allow gays and lesbians to marry.
Civil unions, which confer some rights similar to marriage, would still be recognized but no longer granted after Sept. 1.
Campbell said marriage is an improvement over civil unions both substantively and as a matter of wording.
On the first score, he said, marriage is more widely legally recognized than civil unions. If a couple from Vermont got into an accident in Kansas, a spouse likely would have a stronger claim to hospital visitation rights if they were married than if they were in a civil union, he said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090320/ap_on_re_us/gay_marriage;_ylt=AgqeJok55yJOD8v9pK2nMYuyFz4D
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