Compare and contrast; one of my high school english teachers drilled that into my head.?Compare and contrast: Slave rights and gay rights; the contrasts are easy, the comparisons are profound. Slaves could not get legally married either. They could not create and sign contracts, and what is marriage mostly (legally speaking) but a huge contract with thousands of rights and responsibilities.?Navanethem Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights spoke there last year saying, “That just like apartheid laws that criminalized sexual relations between different races, laws against homosexuality are increasingly becoming recognized as anachronistic and inconsistent both with international law and with traditional values of dignity, inclusion, and respect for all.”?Apartheid: A system of laws applied to one category of citizens in order to isolate them and keep them from having privileges and opportunities given to all others.?Stop gay apartheid.

At first I thought it was geared towards the African-American community (you know, after prop 8 passed) and that it would be controversial. The feedback I have gotten has been 99% positive. The historical truth belongs to us as much as it does to the religious right and I have found it to be incredible empowering to speak it. If Mr. Pillay can mention apartheid, we can too. Politically, it is geared toward anyone with a consciousness, black or white or brown…. I could write a thesis on how it effects people along the broad width of our political spectrum, but I don’t have the time. Though, I would like to conjecture that it puts doubts in my political enemies and it supports my friends; specifically, I can imagine Supreme Court Justice Thomas mulling it over subconsciously while falling asleep and then waking up and thinking “It is true”.

Do civil unions automatically become marriages? [Doubtful]

This would be the first veto of an actual state legislature-enacted, viable law. And I honestly don’t think Douglas will veto this if it’s getting almost 90% support in the senate, but I guess we’ll have to see.

Aslo, a “filibuster-proof majority” is not the same thing as a “veto-proof majority”.

A filibuster-proof majority is the number of legislators that it takes to cut-off debate and vote. Usually this is around 60%. If over 40% feels so strongly about an issue that they are willing to tie up all movement on all bills to drone on and on and on, then a filibuster can be employed.

A veto-proof majority is the number of legislators that it takes to override the veto of the executive branch. Usually this is around 2/3 (67%).

The House is made up of 3% Progressives, 64% Democrats, 1% Independents, and 31% Republicans. Even with a party-line vote, there would be a veto-proof majority. And in the Senate, half the Republicans voted for the marriage bill. It is not at all unlikely that 2/3 of the House will support marriage equality.

If the marriage vote has veto-proof majorities in both houses, it’s not likely that Douglas will veto the bill. He’ll just let it become law without his signature.

People, including myself, vilified Arnold at the time, but again, he turned out to be right, and he may have actually moved the process along by being right. Had he signed the bill into law, perhaps the constitutional case would have been dropped as moot, then the right-wing would have issued a challenge, the marriage equality law would have been struck down, Prop. 22 would have been reinstated, and we would have had to start all over again with the constitutional challenge to Prop. 22.

Douglas could become the first governor to veto a PROPERLY ENACTED gay marriage bill.

@Japhy: Sorry, you should have known that Ahnold vetoed gay marriage twice.

Heck, they’ve probably realised that legalising gay marriage in the state will open the door to lots of lovely gay lucre. The law would come into effect September 1st, you say? Pefect! That gives plenty of time to plan a beautiful Vermont fall wedding. This looks to me like a very savvy economic move.

Japhy, dude……..how could you not know that?

Gov S. vetoed it and looked what happened, a big mess! I think Douglas will let it become law without signing it. He said something recently like “if it’s coming let’s get it over with”. He knows that the legislature will just pass it a veto-proof majority in the next session or the session after, so what’s the point of the veto? He’ll never be a republican national figure in this GOP even if he vetos the bill.

Schwarzenegger could have let the bill become law without his signature as well, but still vetoed it twice (2005 and 2007–after he would never face the voters again!)

I’m hopeful that Douglas is a different breed of Republican governor, but I’m not very sanguine.

Dammit. Now, I’m sure Arnold would do a flip-flop and sign it. But alas, CA has Prop H8 and we must now wait to see if the court will agree to protect our rights or if we must fight for them ourselves in the next 18 months.

They only need another 16 votes to pass it the Vermont house of Reps with a simple majority (they have 60 votes in the bag, already based on number of sponsors & VT HoR is 150 seats) but they need a 101 votes in the house to be able to overturn a veto… possible but it will likely get tight

I think Douglas will let the bill become law.