{"id":1314,"date":"2009-03-24T17:33:10","date_gmt":"2009-03-24T17:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/03\/vermont-moves-to-legalize-gay.php"},"modified":"2009-03-24T17:33:10","modified_gmt":"2009-03-24T17:33:10","slug":"vermont-moves-to-legalize-gay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/vermont-moves-to-legalize-gay","title":{"rendered":"Vermont Moves to Legalize Gay Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Vermont state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Monday (March 23) to allow same-sex marriage, putting the state one step closer to becoming the first to approve same-sex marriage by legislative means.<br \/>\nThe Democratic-dominated state Senate voted 26 to 4 in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage. House Speaker Shap Smith, a Democrat, predicted to USA Today that a majority of the House would also vote in favor.<br \/>\nGov. Jim Douglas, a Republican, has said he opposes the bill, but has not indicated whether he would veto the measure.<br \/>\nIf the measure is approved, Vermont would become the third state (following neighboring Massachusetts and Connecticut) to allow same-sex marriage. Vermont was the first state to grant civil unions in 2000.<br \/>\nIf approved, the law would replace Vermont&#8217;s civil-unions law starting Sept. 1. Civil unions performed in the past nine years, however, would still be recognized, according to The New York Times.<br \/>\nOpponents say changing state laws to allow same-sex marriage is both unnecessary and morally questionable.<br \/>\n&#8220;Same-sex marriage in Vermont can offer only one benefit to Vermont&#8217;s gay population: Hopes of increased social acceptance,&#8221; said the Vermont Marriage Advisory Council. &#8220;All legal experts agree that civil unions already provide every legal benefit and protection Vermont can give.&#8221;<br \/>\n<em>By Karin Hamilton<br \/>\nReligion News Service<br \/>\nCopyright 2009 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Vermont state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Monday (March 23) to allow same-sex marriage, putting the state one step closer to becoming the first to approve same-sex marriage by legislative means. The Democratic-dominated state Senate voted 26 to 4 in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage. House Speaker Shap Smith, a Democrat, predicted to USA&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Vermont Moves to Legalize Gay Marriage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/vermont-moves-to-legalize-gay\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Vermont Moves to Legalize Gay Marriage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Vermont state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Monday (March 23) to allow same-sex marriage, putting the state one step closer to becoming the first to approve same-sex marriage by legislative means. The Democratic-dominated state Senate voted 26 to 4 in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage. House Speaker Shap Smith, a Democrat, predicted to USA&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/vermont-moves-to-legalize-gay\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-03-24T17:33:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"akornfeld\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Vermont Moves to Legalize Gay Marriage","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/vermont-moves-to-legalize-gay","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Vermont Moves to Legalize Gay Marriage","og_description":"The Vermont state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Monday (March 23) to allow same-sex marriage, putting the state one step closer to becoming the first to approve same-sex marriage by legislative means. The Democratic-dominated state Senate voted 26 to 4 in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage. House Speaker Shap Smith, a Democrat, predicted to USA&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/vermont-moves-to-legalize-gay","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2009-03-24T17:33:10+00:00","author":"akornfeld","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/vermont-moves-to-legalize-gay","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/vermont-moves-to-legalize-gay","name":"Vermont Moves to Legalize Gay Marriage","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-03-24T17:33:10+00:00","dateModified":"2009-03-24T17:33:10+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/vermont-moves-to-legalize-gay#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/vermont-moves-to-legalize-gay"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/vermont-moves-to-legalize-gay#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Vermont Moves to Legalize Gay Marriage"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a","name":"akornfeld","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","caption":"akornfeld"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/akornfeld"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}