Editing Baker v. Vermont (section)

== Opinion of the Court ==

On December 20, 1999, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that the denial of marriage benefits to same-sex partners was a violation of the state constitution. In the majority opinion authored by Chief Justice [[Jeffrey Amestoy]] and joined by two other judges, the court held that the state must guarantee the same protections and benefits to same-sex couples that it does to male-female spouses, and added that the legislature should, in a "reasonable period of time", find a way to provide same-sex couples with those benefits.<ref name=goldberg2>{{cite news|last=Goldberg|first=Carey|title=Vermont High Court Backs Rights of Same-Sex Couples|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/21/us/vermont-high-court-backs-rights-of-same-sex-couples.html|access-date=July 12, 2013|newspaper=New York Times|date=December 21, 1999}}</ref>  Justices [[John Dooley (judge)|John Dooley]] and [[Denise R. Johnson]] each wrote separate opinions concurring that the exclusion of same-sex couples to the state's marriage rights was unconstitutional, but with different rationales.

===Majority opinion===

The majority opinion was authored by Chief Justice [[Jeffrey Amestoy]] and joined by justices James Morse and [[Marilyn Skoglund]]. In it, the court dismissed the plaintiff's contention that the denial of same-sex unions violated Vermont marriage statutes. The court held that while the statutes did not explicitly limit marriage to male-female pairs, both the common dictionary definition of marriage and the legislative intent when the relevant statutes were enacted in 1945 favored the interpretation of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The court also interpreted the terms ''bride'' and ''groom'' as being gender-specific.

With respect to the State Constitution's Common Benefit Clause, the court noted that it was an original component of the 1777 Vermont Constitution, predating the [[Equal Protection Clause]] of the Federal Constitution's [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|14th Amendment]] by several decades. The Court further noted that Vermont is free to provide rights to its citizens not granted by the U.S. Constitution, and that the application of the Common Benefit Clause has historically been significantly different from the federal courts' application of the Equal Protection Clause. While the federal Equal Protection Clause is typically invoked only under very limited circumstances, the Common Benefit Clause has been read to require that "statutory exclusions from publicly conferred benefits and protections must be 'premised on an appropriate and overriding public interest.'"

The court found that the state's marriage policy did not serve such an "overriding public interest", rejecting the argument that same-sex marriages would do harm by weakening the link between marriage and child rearing and finding no administrative or pragmatic difficulty with extending the rights of marriage to same-sex couples. The court also noted the state's endorsement of parenting by gays and lesbians in a series of actions, including 1996 legislation promoting same-sex adoption. It also dismissed the argument that legal recognition of same-sex marriage would not conform to the practices of other states, pointing out that Vermont already allowed for certain marriage contracts not recognized by other states (including first-cousin marriages), and that such concerns had not prevented the passage of laws allowing same-sex couples to adopt. The court dismissed the defendant's remaining arguments, such as those concerning the "stability" of same-sex couples, as too nebulous or speculative to justify a policy with respect to all same-sex couples and equally applicable to some male-female partnerships.

The court declined to grant the plaintiffs' request for a marriage license, though it allowed that "some future case may attempt to establish that notwithstanding equal benefits and protections under Vermont law—the denial of a marriage license operates per se to deny constitutionally protected rights". Instead, the court directed the State to implement a system to grant same-sex couples statutory rights and privileges equivalent to those enjoyed by male-female couples. This system could be implemented by modifying the marriage statutes to allow for same-sex marriages or by creating a parallel status under another name.

===Concurrences and dissent===

;Justice John Dooley
Justice [[John Dooley (judge)|John Dooley]] wrote a concurrence in which he agreed with the majority opinion in that the denial of marriage benefits to same-sex couples violated the State's Common Benefits Clause, he did not agree with the majority's reliance on federal precedent, which does not hold binding on the Vermont state courts.  He accused the majority on relying on the Supreme Court case ''[[Bowers v. Hardwick]]'', which held that sodomy laws can be constitutionally criminalized, and not applying a [[suspect classification]] to sexual orientation in accordance to Vermont court jurisprudence developments.

;Justice Denise R. Johnson
Justice [[Denise R. Johnson]] concurred with the majority's holding that the marriage statutes defining marriage between opposite couples violated the state constitution, but dissented from the remedy.  Johnson wrote that she believed that the state was required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, not just offer the same benefits by a different name.  She argued the marriage statutes were a violation of sex classification.  She wrote, "I would grant the requested relief and enjoin defendants from denying plaintiffs a marriage license based solely on the sex of the applicants."