December 21,1999

Governor Howard Dean
The State House
Montpelier, VT 05609

Dear Governor Dean,

As the president of a religious movement with a long tradition of support for the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, I applaud the unanimous decision of the Vermont Supreme Court which states that Vermont must guarantee the very same protections and benefits to gay and lesbian couples that it does to heterosexual couples. You have good reason to be proud of Vermont's pioneering understanding that extending equal rights to homosexual couples is, as the court's ruling states, "a recognition of our common humanity."

As Unitarian Universalists, we covenant to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person. At the Unitarian Universalist Association's General Assembly in 1996, we passed a resolution supporting the right of same-sex couples to marry, and Unitarian Universalist ministers are proud to officiate at ceremonies of union for same-sex couples. We are pleased to see that Vermont now recognizes the necessity of guaranteeing the full protections and rights of citizenship to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.

I know that it is now up to the Vermont legislature to decide how to implement the court's ruling, and I understand the discomfort you have expressed with the notion of same-sex marriages. Allow me to question, however, on spiritual grounds, whether a domestic partnership system would be sufficient to secure for gay couples real equality. As our nation learned during its long struggle to secure civil rights for its African-American citizens, separate but equal is never truly equal at all.

Perhaps the real question is What Is Marriage For? That is the title of a brilliant social history of the institution of marriage, recently published by our Beacon Press. E. J. Graff, in the course of analyzing the development and functions of marriage in Western society, makes a compelling case for the concept of marriage to be extended to same-sex couples. I am sending you a copy of the book with my compliments, in the hope that you and other key decision-makers in Vermont can use it to consider how the ruling of the Supreme Court is carried out in a way that truly ensures that all citizens are treated equally.

With best wishes,

Yours faithfully,

John A. Buehrens
President, Unitarian Universalist Association