We have to do the right thing (NPR on civil unions and Dean) [View All]

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That is what Howard Dean said to nervous Vermont State Senate leaders when they tried to get him to form a commission to study civil unions to let them off the hook. This is according to David Moats who quite literally wrote the book on civil unions in Vermont.

http://freshair.npr.org/day_fa.jhtml?display=day&todayDate=02/05/2004

The link above is from Thursday Feb 5 Fresh Air. It is close to 30 minutes in length. Some highlights.

Around 4 minutes in he tells us that the chair of the House Judiciary Committee said that he could only get 35 votes for marriage while he needed 76. Might that be why Dean went for civil unions instead? At around 7 1/2 minutes in we learn that 16 house members and 2 senators lost their seats. The story of one of those senators is awesome. It is from 13 minutes in to around 18 minutes in that we really discuss Dean. From his immediate press conference where he supports domestic partnership (which later were civil unions) and expressed discomfort of marriage. To his telling the nervous Senate they had to do it. To his closed signing with the immediate explanation of why it was private and why it was signed.

I figured some truth on this would be nice.

The man is David Moats. The book is Civil Wars: A Battle for Gay Marriage. The paper he works for is the Rutland Herald and he won a Pulitzer prize for his coverage.

On edit

Please note that Fresh Air doesn't do transcripts and any trascription errors by me are just that errors. I am not great at trascribing spoken words and am not being dishonest here.