Dialogue Even Vermont can be radical

by KATE BELGRAVE

Vermont, my friends, is the most boring place on Earth.

I realise that the Americans among you will think that's a little rich, coming from a New Zealander and all. You probably have a point, but so do I. I am on solid ground when I describe Vermont as the most pointless, retentive and embittered shambles of a place since ... well, since Wellington, really (meaning absolutely no disrespect to the old home town, of course. I still have a soft spot for old Wellie. I just wish it'd wake up to the fact that I'm the only person in Auckland who does).

But anyway ... Vermont. A terrible place, people - yet another middle-American shrine to thwarted ambition, fallen hopes, crushed spirits, in-breeding and vengefulness. I know these things because I visited the said state during a road-trip through the United States in the early 1990s.

Mother of God, what a nightmare it was. I left the place in complete psychological shambles. It was the mixed messages, I think. Vermont, you see, is one of those places where the locals manage, somehow, to make you feel brilliantly welcome and totally inadequate at the same time.

You get this a lot in Middle America - people opening their arms to you, the better to crush you in a vicious bear-hug of hatred and wretched conservatism. "Where're y'all from?" people would ask in that bright, investigative tone that the well-heeled tend to employ when they're trying to work out how white you are.

A woman in a clothes shop told us to take care in our travels because America was bursting with deviant, paranoid persons. "I wouldn't travel around here with just another woman," she said, looking concerned. Then she put the boot in. "It'd almost be like you were asking for it," she observed. She didn't exactly call us a couple of desperate old hookers but she might as well have. That, friends, was Vermont.

Or at least I think it was. Upon reflection, I may have my visit to Vermont confused with my stay in Albuquerque.

Whatever. Location is not important. (It certainly isn't to Americans - they keep thinking we're Australians). It doesn't change the observation that I want to make, being that the Vermont Senate just passed a bill allowing gay couples to enter into civil unions. In other words, Vermont has taken America's biggest step towards permitting gay couples to marry.

It has begun to succeed where other states have (purposely) failed. Some 30 states in America have passed laws against gay marriage. Go figure that one. Admittedly, Vermont's bill falls short of allowing gay couples to marry but it's heading in the right direction. At least it goes some way to allowing gay couples matrimonial property rights.

It also demonstrates exactly the spirit that I am perfectly confident we will see here when the Matrimonial Property Act is amended by our own eminently sophisticated elected representatives.

The truly fascinating part about all this, though, is that legislators voted for these civil unions in an election year and in the face of stiff opposition from a large number of their constituents - the conservative, God-bothering constituents such as the ones I described in my opening remarks.

That is not an exaggeration. Or if it is, it's the New York Times'. It has reported the harassment that pro-civil union lawmakers in Vermont have had to put up with. There has been vandalism to cars, and obscene gestures, as well as the standard "see you in hell" letters and phone calls.

As someone who has received her share of moronic - albeit rarely legible - correspondence from local ranting homophobes, I can well believe that lawmakers in Vermont have had their work cut out pushing liberal legislation through. What is important, though, is that they managed to get as far as they did, and that they managed to do it in a place like Vermont. It all supports my basic argument that ultra-conservative homophobes serve a useful function in that they remind even conservative legislators how not to be.

But anyway, have a good Anzac Day. Kick back and have a think about all those guys who died so that others might be free.