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But the law also falls short of genuine equality in significant ways. Our desire not to go back to 2000, and the turmoil we experienced that year, should not stop us from - looking forward to the future, and educating ourselves and oth- ers on the ways in which the civil union law falls short of the full equality it was supposed to be. .The Legal Status of Being “Married,” I_s_ a Benefit of Marriage Like it or not, the term mar- riage is widely understood, not just in Vermont and Massachusetts, but around the world. By plugging into that uni- versally understood language, it gives us all a frame of reference. We all have an understanding of what a married couple is. The word alone also establishes a set of expectations between the com- mitted partners themselves. That simply isn t true for civil union, or any other new legal status created to avoid the use of the word marriage. You cant assume that someone in Arizona, Japan, or New Zealand has ever heard the term civil union, or has any idea what it means. The social significance of the term married is one of the signifi- cant benefits of marriage. There are members of our community who wouldnt ever choose to adopt the social content that comes with the term marriage. Given the choice, they d rather not plug into the centuries of history and interna- tional recognition that comes with the term. But the fact is, right now, they don t have the choice. Those in our community who value the concept of mar- riage, and who seek the intangi- ble but very real social recogni- tion that accompanies that legal status, have no way of attaining it. The state guards the gate to the legal status of married, and i n’t Enough so far, we re barred from entering. ' “Separate But Equal" Cannot Be Equal Whether we would choose the label married or not, many of us recoil at the message inherent in a set of laws that sets us apart as unworthy of full inclusion. Although there are many differ- ences between anti-gay discrimi- nation and the racism of the mid- 20th century South, the analogies are undeniable. It wasn t until‘ the groundbreaking 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Brown v. Board of Education that the law finally recognized that separate but equal is, by definition, unequal. The mere fact of separation stig- matized the African Americans who supposedly were included even though separated. Even if the seats in the back of the bus were functionally the same as the seats in the white-only front of the bus, we intuitively understand that isolating a group of citizens in order to avoid commingling is stigmatizing, immoral, and unconstitutional. These principles apply as well to the marriage apartheid we re now living in Vermont. As the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently acknowl- edged in ruling that a civil union law like ours would be unconsti- tutional, The history of our nation has demonstrated that sep- arate is seldom, if ever, equal. We re not allowed to marry because some want to protect traditional marriage, meaning heterosexuals-only marriage. The civil union law was an attempt to split the difference between those seeking full equal- ity, and those who reject our claim to recognition and inclu- sion altogether. The homophobia underlying the law isn t limited to those who openly admit to an anti-gay agenda. Many of our tra- ditional allies in the political sphere pursued civil unions with I zeal while also insisting upon our exclusion from marriage. This suggests that even many of our straight friends believe we re entitled to rights, but in the end, our love and families aren t real- ly entitled to quite the same recognition and respect as theirs. The civil union law is cheered by some of our commu- nity precisely because it creates a separate status, untamished by whatever baggage they associate with marriage. But for others, our ‘willingness to settle for a law that repeats in several places the mantra of our exclusion (the law reiterates that we cannot marry) reflects our own internalized homophobia. It suggests that we re grateful for some truly tasty scraps rather than insisting on our seat at the table. That s a message we cannot send. V This is the second in a three-part series. In the first ‘part, published last month, Sherry Corbin of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force described the changes in the national landscape since Vermonts civil union law passed and called for fiirther movemfit toward marriage. In the final part, to be published next month, the Task Force discusses the tan- gible legal disadvantages of civil unions. « Laura Davidson is a member of the Vermont Freedom to Marry’ Task Force, and lives with her partner in Braintree.