Felnstein meets Ferguson ,Didn’t your a mother tell you Legal Briefs What Hawaii Means Here WILB HQ75 .0971 /. if IN Volume XIV, Number l2 January 2000 THE MOUNTAN www.vtpride.org Supreme Court Says Yes to Equal Rights Legislature ordered to extend marital rights, benefits, and obligations to same-gender couples MONTPELIER — All of the rights and benefits of marriage must flow to gay and lesbian couples in Vermont. In eloquent and forceful words, the Vermont Supreme Court overturned decades of discrimination on Dec. 20 and ordered the state Legislature to fix state law. J The court did not grant all that was sought by Lois Farnham and Holly Puterbaugh, Stan Baker and Peter Harrigan, and Nina Beck and Stacy Jolles. But it went further than any other in the nation, and now the state legislature must act. "We hold that the state is constitutionally required to extend to same-sex couples the common benefits and protec- tions that flow from marriage under Vermont law,” the jus- tices said in a ruling written by Chief Justice Jeffrey Amestoy. “Whether this ultimately takes the form of inclusion within the marriage laws themselves or a parallel ‘domestic partner- ship’ system or some equiva- lent statutory alternative, rests with the Legislature. “Whatever system is cho- sen, however, must conform with the constitutional impera- tive to afford all Vermonters the common benefit, protec- tion, and security of the law,” the court said. All five justices agreed on the central point that the state may no longeriwithhold the benefits of marriage from gays and lesbians. But it was only Justice Denise Johnson who took issue with sending the issue to the Legislature. In a passionate" dissent from the majority, she said same-sex couples should be allowed to marry immedi- ately. She complained in her sepa- rate opinion that the court rec- ognizes that gays and lesbians are entitled to certain rights and “yet declines to give them any relief other than an exhor- tation to the Legislature to deal with the problem.” But that in and of itself is a landmark. No court has ever held that the hundreds of legal benefits automatically con- ferred on straight couples when they marry must be granted ‘to gays and lesbians. Until now. Amestoy wrote that exten- sion of benefits to acknowl- edge gays and lesbians “as Vermonters who seeknothing more, nor less, than legal pro- tection and security for their avowed commitment to an inti- mate and lasting human rela- tionship is simply, when all is said and done, a recognition of our common humanity.” With those plain but clear words, the five justices of Vermont’s court have changed the world. “This is a legal and cultural milestone,” said Mary The plantiffs of Baker vs Vermot, BackiRow: Nina Beck (holding Seth), Stacey Jolles, Peter Harrigan, Stan Baker. Front row: Holly Puterbaugh and Lois Farnham. Bonauto, a co-counsel for the three couples who sued the state when they were denied marriage licenses in 1997. “This is a glorious day,” said Evan Wolfson of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a gay-rights advocacy group. “Vermont’s highest court has ordered an end to unequal treatment of lesbian and gay families.” Already people are trying to understand just what it all GWJRT > PAGE2 pnons, xieyxjmzioioud 1¢;;.riie;§r;_rn, ;§g_=._¢*e‘ .appli¢é1i0n:‘..“t0 Ostf accepted.‘ is resporisible"..‘f0,r' $ettrng»_i1p_ V M organizational meetings, ‘early ’ Exxon Mobil Ends Domestic Partner Benefits and Non-Discrimination Policy IRVING, Texas - The newly merged Exxon Mobil Corp. will discontinue Mobil’s policy of providing domestic partner benefits and including sexual orientation as a part of its non- discrimination policy. The move was revealed Dec. 6 by the Human Rights Campaign, which received word of the decision from sources inside the merged company. ExxonMobil con- firmed that people currently enrolled in Mobil’s domestic partner benefits program can continue to receive the benefits but no one else may join the plan - even employees who were previously eligible at Mobil. However, ExxonMobil denied that it has no policy prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. ExxonMobil spokesman Tom Cirigliano said that in a’docu- ment sent to shareholders, the company interpreted its current “Harassment in the Workplace” policy to include prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation. However, Cirigliano acknowl- edged neither that policy nor the company’s “Equal Employment Opportunity” policy actually mentions sexu- al orientation. The policy interpretation was contained in a proxy state- ment sent to shareholders in May. It asked them to reject a resolution to add sexual orien- tation to Exxon’s non-discrim- ination policy. “We have a number of prob- lems with communicating cor- porate anti-discrimination poli- cies through a one-time corre- spondence with shareholders,” said Wayne Besen, HRC’s associate director of communi- cations. “The statement is not consistently distributed to employees. Furthermore, since it actually requests that share- holders reject adding sexual orientation to the policy, it is a mixed message at best. Whereas, the former Mobil Corp.’s policy emphatically prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation.” ExxonMobil’s decision bucks a trend among compa- nies to provide explicit protec- tions from discrimination based on sexual orientation and to offer domestic partner benefits. More than half of the Fortune 500 companies include sexual orientation in §‘§§§§t§;’%‘%:‘§§§§§.. 2:» §§§§§2